This research workshop explores new forms of interaction between theatre, digital technologies, and artificial intelligence. Following an initial session held in November 2024—focused on exploring the actor’s body through the lens of the camera—eight actors and technical artists continue a collaborative experiment at the intersection of human and machine.

The previous session included two days dedicated to AI-assisted improvisation. The enthusiastic response from the artists sparked a new ambition: to design an interactive stage system where artificial intelligence acts as a full-fledged partner in performance, capable of directly contributing to the dramaturgical process.

This project raises essential questions:
– How can AI function not only as a dramaturgical tool, but also as a character?
– Can the actor become a living avatar of the machine?
– How does the presence of AI reshape the relationship between actor and audience in a triangle of performer–machine–spectator?
– Can AI be imagined as an unpredictable force, amplifying human emotion or disrupting classical theatrical codes?

This hybrid scenic research aims to invent new forms of expression where code becomes language, machine becomes voice, and the stage becomes an interface. A way to reimagine the living through the artificial—and to question, through the poetry of theatre, the place humans still hold in an increasingly algorithmic world.

Through its support, the Francis Kurkdjian Endowment Fund fosters scenic research in co-creation with artificial intelligence, questions the boundaries between human and machine, and champions an artform that is emotionally attuned, hybrid, and resolutely contemporary.