Marianna SimnettGORGON
13 — 17 September 2023
HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2)
Marianna Simnett’s ambitious stage debut draws on Greek mythology to explore love, envy, power, and empathy in the age of machine learning.
During Berlin Art Week, LAS is proud to present the world premiere of GORGON, a flute opera written, composed, and directed by artist Marianna Simnett. The newly commissioned work is a powerful exploration of the horror and beauty of society in transition. Unfolding through sound, projection, and dance, GORGON makes innovative use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a medium within live performance, shaping its form and narrative.
Simnett’s new piece draws on the origins of the word ‘gorgon’, which comes from the Ancient Greek word ‘gorgós’, meaning dreadful. It is thought to derive from the same root as the Sanskrit word ‘garjana’, describing a growling sound produced in the back of the throat. The performance roots itself in the gendered way that these meanings appear in the myth of the Gorgons. In the story, Greek hero Perseus kills Medusa, the only mortal of three Gorgon sisters, with the help of the god Athena. Hearing the terrifying force of her sisters’ cries of grief, Athena invents an instrument to reproduce the power of their lamentation.
Simnett’s performance transports this archaic tale of pain and power into a contemporary fairy tale. It centres on Greta, a girl working the night shift at a train station doughnut stand, and Gorgon, a shape-shifting entity whose piercing wail can shake the ground. One night, the drudgery of Greta’s job propels her into a vision of being a corporate queen, presiding over an office at the edge of a forest. She becomes set on harnessing the power of Gorgon’s harrowing cry, and begins the pursuit. When a chorus of fireflies lures Greta into mimicking the Gorgon’s wail, the two come face-to-face. Greta’s tools prove incompatible with the world she encounters, and she is forced to give up her desire to own and control it. Slowly, Greta’s body and mind are transformed as she and Gorgon finally come to see one another’s vulnerability.
GORGON brings together collaborators from the fields of classical and contemporary flute, performance, choreography, set design, costuming, video, and AI. Its innovative integration of AI spans video projections and Simnett’s original musical score. The score features a chorus of live flautists whose playing is transformed into AI-generated sounds, as well as voice style transfer, both produced in real-time using custom AI models.
Merging mythology with technology, GORGON asks complex questions about desire, power, gender, the body, intelligence, empathy, and the Other. With cultural references stretching from early human technologies to posthuman theory, the performance is an astounding look at the distress, transformations, and possibilities spurred by technology’s advancement. In a moment marked by the rapid development of AI, GORGON offers timely commentary on how we meet the uncanny, the unwieldy, and the unknown.
Marianna Simnett
Marianna Simnett is an artist and musician living and working in Berlin. Her work has been exhibited internationally in solo exhibitions at venues including Société, Berlin (2022); Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2019); Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich (2019); MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2018); The New Museum, New York (2018) and Zabludowicz Collection, London (2018). Selected group exhibitions include Chrysalis: The Butterfly Dream, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (2023); the 59th Venice Biennale: The Milk of Dreams (2022); Espressioni: The Epilogue, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2022); and Prize of the Böttcherstraße, Kunsthalle Bremen (2022).
