unbetitelter Tanz (or spectral relationality in psychosomatic crisis), 2025
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composition & sonic AI Julie Zhu
visual-AI tech Daniel Bisig
In unbetitelter Tanz (or spectral relationality in psychosomatic crisis), Zander Porter and Julie Zhu fuse movement and sound through multi-modal, machine-learning mappings. Zander performs the network activity backlog of a post-internet cyborg (“a” body), while Julie navigates the movement-synchronized beatings and shrieks from no-input feedback. Resonances of both artificial and autistic intelligence generate questions of intelligibility and source for the exported solo. The performance manifests a literal and psychic mirror-matrix for the corporeality of the machine in a constant state of learning and unlearning “dance-expressions,” considered alongside historical inquiry into connections between Ausdruckstanz and the Holocaust as well as butoh and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The performance was initiated in residency at Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside (California) in 2024, supported additionally by Leonardo/ISAST with Arizona State University in context of Leonardo@Djerassi 2024 (with accompanying profile published in Leonardo for MIT Press), Megan Nicely (residency guest), and Theaterhaus Berlin. Technical-technological components, improvisations, and experimentations with motion capture + sound and gesture recognition + motion continuation occurred while Zander and Julie were together in residency in 2025 at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (accompanied by Daniel Bisig) at the Zurich University of the Arts. A corresponding performance-test “pre-premiered” in the Immersive Arts Space.
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