We can hardly blame the creators of this busy one-man show for endlessly worrying about whether the finished work counts as theatre. Much effort is made to satisfy stretched definitions of the form. The audience members are asked to upload video of themselves - staring, laughing, sleeping - and the rendered images, each transferred to tablet, are scattered about the auditorium in Project Arts Centre. Sitting at home before a streaming computer, you cannot control your avatar, but, as a few reverse shots clarify (apologies for cinematic rather than theatrical jargon), you are there in some cybernetic sense.
Jack Gleeson, best known as the horrid Joffrey in Game of Thrones, spends much of the brief running time pondering the ups and downs of this hybrid form. You can go to the lavatory with less inconvenience. Maybe you are on the lavatory right now. Try to forget the screen, he says before - in my case, anyway - a brief buffering issue (was that deliberate?) made that task impossible.
All this might have proved exhausting if the self-conscious experiments did not complement the plays core theme. Happily, the experimental format is well-suited to an exploration of transhumanism. Adapted from Mark OConnells acclaimed non-fiction book, To be a Machine, a Dead Centre production, goes among those scientists, entrepreneurs and philosophers who believe technology will allow consciousness to survive the bodys passing. Somewhere in Arizona, a company called Alcor keeps an array of upended heads in Perspex containers. The comparison with the two-dimensional heads scattered about the Projects auditorium is unavoidable. The digitally assisted survival of this theatre piece in the time of Covid acts as a neat metaphor for the process by which computers may allow our thought streams to outlast physical annihilation.
Playing a tweaked version of OConnell, Gleeson sometimes struggles to energise a monologue that carries a few stubborn reminders of its origins in long-form prose. But the technological flourishes keep the show engaging throughout.
Questions remain about its status as theatre. At one point, Gleeson, employing the famous Turing test, seeks to discover if the audience is really out there? We could ask him the same question. We know the show is live because we have been told as much, but, for those of us not having our comments in the chat-box read out, little on screen distinguishes it from a one-take movie. The pieces creators almost certainly savour that ambiguity.
Online until Sat, Oct 10th. For booking see dublintheatrefestival.ie
See original here:
To be a Machine review: Experimental format well-suited to plays core theme - The Irish Times
- Can Transhumanism Rescue The West From The Threat Of AI? - Forbes - April 5th, 2024
- Transhumanism News, Research and Analysis The ... - April 5th, 2024
- The Transhuman Revolution: What it is and How to Prepare for its Arrival - March 12th, 2023
- Transhumanism: What It Is, and Why It Is So Fundamentally Wrong - March 12th, 2023
- No death and an enhanced life: Is the future transhuman? - January 21st, 2023
- Situation Update, Nov 1, 2022 - The transhumanism demonic AI takeover ... - December 27th, 2022
- Dr. Tau Braun and the Health Ranger talk transhumanism, AI infiltration ... - December 18th, 2022
- The Evolution of Godless Practices: Eugenics, Infanticide, and ... - December 10th, 2022
- Ancient Wisdom in Medicine / AI & Transhumanism | Coast to Coast AM - December 10th, 2022
- Transhumanism - End Times Bible Prophecy - December 2nd, 2022
- Transfection to Transhumanism - Part 1 - rumble.com - November 24th, 2022
- Fact check: False claim Biden's executive order limits human rights - November 24th, 2022
- Guerrero: I once fell for the fantasy of uploading ourselves. It's a dangerous myth - Los Angeles Times - October 13th, 2022
- Peek into Bible prophecy: Cryptic guide to end times - Monitor - October 13th, 2022
- Science and Religion | Science and Religion - Patheos - October 13th, 2022
- Literature and Religion | Literature and Religion - Patheos - October 13th, 2022
- Robocop at 35: why the satirical action movie still holds up today - Digital Trends - October 4th, 2022
- OffGuardian because facts really should be sacred - September 16th, 2022
- Mutate or Die: UNI and The Urchins Announce Debut Album 'Simulator,' out January 13th, 2023 on Chimera Music - Shore Fire Media - September 16th, 2022
- The truth about Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried, and effective altruism - Fast Company - September 16th, 2022
- Eight best books on AI ethics and bias - INDIAai - September 16th, 2022
- McDermott: Pinner may have been crackers, but in today's GOP, she was practically normal - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - August 30th, 2022
- Stray - A simple and focused game in a world of games that go astray - Flayrah - August 30th, 2022
- Public Theology for the Common Good | Public Theology for the Common Good - Patheos - August 14th, 2022
- Transhumanism: Savior of humanity or false prophecy? - August 14th, 2022
- Navigating the Fourth Turning - International Man - August 5th, 2022
- Whatever Happened to the Transhumanists? - Gizmodo - August 5th, 2022
- Elon Musk and a warning of dystopian future of AI: What is digital and biological computing? - DailyO - August 5th, 2022
- The Elite Coup to Kill or Enslave Us: Why Can't Governments, Legal Actions and Protests Stop Them? - PRESSENZA International News Agency - July 27th, 2022
- Transhumanism to humankind's rescue? A new book claims we face a 'make or break' century, so let the technological remake begin - Genetic Literacy... - July 27th, 2022
- Mutants are Coming to the MCU, But Where Does Krakoa Fit In? - Gizmodo - July 27th, 2022
- Barbara Marx Hubbard: Godmother of Transhumanism and Synthetic Spirituality - July 3rd, 2022
- Crimes of the Future's Body Politics Show an Emergent Trans Fantasy - Gizmodo - June 22nd, 2022
- Transhumanism Is Pure Eugenics - Evolution News - June 4th, 2022
- Transhumanism Humanity+ - June 4th, 2022
- Religious Transhumanism 11: What about the body? | cybernetic immortality - Patheos - June 4th, 2022
- Dr. Robert Malone: Resisting Covid Tyranny and the WEFs Great Reset | The Paradise News - The Paradise News - May 15th, 2022
- How Alex Jones' Conspiracy Empire Has Kept Itself Going Even While Being Banned From Social Media - The Daily Beast - May 2nd, 2022
- David Cronenbergs Crimes of the Future trailer shows return to sci-fi body horror - Polygon - April 19th, 2022
- FALSE: COVID-19 vaccines eliminate 'God Particle' in the body - Rappler - January 20th, 2022
- Transhumanism: Pros and Cons - iGyaan - December 24th, 2021
- TRANSHUMANISM / HUMAN 2.0 End Time Talks - October 16th, 2021
- Transhumanism: Expert exposes liberal billionaire elitists ... - October 16th, 2021
- What is Transhumanism? - October 16th, 2021
- COVID19, The Great Reset, and Transhumanism Thuletide - October 16th, 2021
- Gene-editing, Moderna, and transhumanism | Christina Lin ... - October 16th, 2021
- Why haven't we heard more from the human rights bureaucracy about Covid and our liberties? - The Spectator Australia - August 5th, 2021
- Cameras Roll On David Cronenberg Sci-Fi Crimes Of The Future With Viggo Mortensen, La Seydoux, Kristen Stewart; More Cast Join - Deadline - August 5th, 2021
- Five minutes with Rafe Johnson - 2021 - Articles - Transform magazine - July 21st, 2021
- Not Even This by Jack Underwood review fatherhood, philosophy and fear - The Guardian - May 13th, 2021
- Is Biohacking The Future Of Skincare? - British Vogue - December 29th, 2020
- UTC Professor Blends Together Philosophical Concepts And Filmmaking - The Chattanoogan - November 17th, 2020
- Pandemics and transhumanism - The Times of India Blog - September 20th, 2020
- CD Projekt Red have nabbed Cyberpunk, but here are 5 other punks that deserve games - PC Gamer - September 20th, 2020
- Former Witcher 3 devs are launching a sci-fi novel-inspired game - PCGamesN - September 20th, 2020
- Jeffrey Epstein and the Hideous Strength of Transhumanism - National Catholic Register - April 9th, 2020
- cyborgs, robots, and biohackers: the first-ever survey of transhumanism - Designboom - March 2nd, 2020
- A time-travelling musical comedy with lots of flying - Insane Animals arrives at HOME - Manchester Evening News - March 2nd, 2020
- Jason Silva Harnesses the Ineffable - The Good Men Project - March 2nd, 2020
- The 10 best cyberpunk games on PC - PC Gamer - January 5th, 2020
- Top Movies Of 2019 That Depicted Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Analytics India Magazine - January 5th, 2020
- How our screen stories of the future went from flying cars to a darker version of now - The Conversation AU - December 15th, 2019
- Living in the real AI world - Covalence - December 15th, 2019
- 'The Expanse' Season 4's biggest highlight is eventual coming together of Belters and New Terra - MEAWW - December 15th, 2019
- Cyborgs and immortality: into the research of Dr. Huberman - University News | - University News - September 22nd, 2019
- Long live candidate Harris, Milwaukee's US Transhumanist Party presidential hopeful - Milwaukee Record - September 22nd, 2019
- All charged up over body parts, Arts News & Top Stories - The Straits Times - September 22nd, 2019
- Entering the Echo Chamber of the Alt-Right - Hyperallergic - September 22nd, 2019
- What Is Transhumanism? - thecut.com - September 19th, 2019
- Research Paper Transhumanism - Middlebury College - May 4th, 2019
- Transhumanism and AI - Energetic Synthesis - April 28th, 2019
- Do Jehovah Witnesses Believe in Resurrection or Transhumanism? - April 22nd, 2019
- Radical Environmentalism and Transhumanism: Symptoms of the ... - April 22nd, 2019
- A New Generation of Transhumanists Is Emerging | HuffPost - April 20th, 2019
- Library : Transhumanism | Catholic Culture - April 16th, 2019
- U.S. Transhumanist Party PUTTING SCIENCE, HEALTH ... - March 3rd, 2019
- The Ethics Of Transhumanism And The Cult Of Futurist Biotech - September 25th, 2018
- Elevating the Human Condition - Humanity+ What does it mean ... - July 14th, 2018
- What is Transhumanism? - GenSix Productions - June 30th, 2018
- Transhumanism | Conspiracy School - June 30th, 2018