I'm a Robot and I need Therapy

Real-time therapy session for a neurodivergent AI

Experimental performance (80’)

Premiered at Frascati Theater Amsterdam on 13 November 2024.
Presented at IDlab / Paradiso / Veem House for Performance / Flam Festival Amsterdam / Next Level Festival, Dortmund.

Trailer

A critical and ironic view on modern society’s approach to empathy, technology ethics and psychiatric system through means of theatre, dance and dark comedy. This experimental performance is based on autobiographical material and personal experiences of being a neurodivergent artist.

Concept, text, directing, performance: Marina Orlova
Co-directing: Nazar Rakhmanov
Creative AI engineering: Artem Konevskikh
Dramaturgical adviser: Amelie Haller, Burkhard Körner
Sound design: Arieh Chrem
Light design, video design: Nazar Rakhmanov
Outside eye: Tiana Hemlock-Yensen
Creative process facilitation: Burkhard Körner
Production: Marina Orlova, with support of IDlab (AHK) and Veem House for Performance
Supported by: AFK, Creative Industries NL, Wilhelmina E. Jansen Fonds
Research phase support: Workspace Brussels, ON/OFF residency, Amarte fonds, Creative Industries NL
Research phase collaborators: Biljana Radinoska, Emilia Grzeczka, Gregory Dyachkov
Special thanks to Raoni Saleh, Yves Regenass, Gala Faraus, Liza Spivakovskaya, Erik Lint, Willem Weemhoff, Jos Daamen, Asya Deinekina, Charlot Van Der Meer, Sonya Golovkova, Tasha Arlova.

This project crosses ideas of neurodiversity and responsible AI. It presents a paradoxical entity of a “mentally unstable AI” and speculates about its “therapeutic needs”. The AI is represented by a chatbot engineered specifically for this project and trained with a unique dataset of interviews with people who identify as neurodivergent or mentally unstable. It is generating text in real time on stage therefore all the dialogues are improvised.

Through characters that have a different relationship to the AI (therapist, tech start-up CEO, hacker, robot’s girlfriend), this piece deals with the questions of agency, subjectivity and power relations between humans and AI and draws a parallel with the power relations in the field of psychiatry.

Photos by Tasha Arlova, Sonya Golovkova, Roel Backaert.
Video by Tasha Arlova.
Poster by Tanya Kovalevich.