The Project

The Data Fluencies Theatre Project at Emerson College is an artistic research project that aims to extend and make accessible to wider publics the work developed in the multi-institutional Mellon-funded Data Fluencies Project by mobilizing theatrical performance’s potential to build data fluencies that are grounded in and honor embodied experience. The project brings together an interdisciplinary team to co-create a participatory, devised, hybrid multimedia performance that engages with algorithmic and AI systems. The performance is developed in partnership with CultureHub and will be performed in person in Boston and Vancouver as well as online. The performance’s hybrid format aims to expand access and engage the Internet as both a stage for performance and an object of investigation and critique.

The project also seeks to engage community members in exploring themes and tools related to the performance through the Data Fluencies Play Club.

The Performance

Blending theatrical conventions, choreographed movement, hip-hop, and artistic experiments with machine learning, this devised performance seeks to challenge established systems of control. Both online and in person, audiences will explore alternative modes of engaging with our data-filled world in ways that open possibilities for more equitable futures alongside AI.

image created with DALL-E-2 tool using prompt: "futuristic nature and machines theatre dancing"
[image created with DALL-E-2]