Never before in human history have all forms of art and human expression been so threatened by a new, powerful force as they are today. Artificial intelligence, with all its digital variants, is spreading even into the realms of the classical arts. In one project, Italian choreographer Emanuele Soavi has addressed the question of whether we humans will continue to make art in a physically tangible way or whether the comprehensive dissolution of the physical into the digital is our inevitable future. Emanuele Soavi has given the project the title “The Day I became a Cloud”, and over a period of two years he is developing a dance expression with Italian and German dancers of what it means to have a disembodied form of existence. 

I accompanied the project from the first rehearsal in Annonay, France, to the premiere at the Museé d' Art Moderne in Paris and the final performance at the Palazzo Schifanoia in the UNESCO heritage city of Ferrara. The film shows the creation of the choreography as well as the creative work of Emanuele Soavi, and embeds it in critical reflections on the value of human culture in an AI-based future. The pending final performance in the famous Renaissance palace aims to understand physical dance as the last human form of expression that cannot be adapted by digital AI. Emanuele Soavi uses the symbolism of the cloud to create a choreography that tells of human intuition and knows how to defend itself against digital takeover. He develops his own code in his choreography, which could perhaps form the basis for a new form of interpersonal communication that cannot be deciphered by the algorithms of the digital world.

Hansjörg Thurn