‘Theatre is my breath, my chaos and peace at the same time' | NTGent
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‘Theatre is my breath, my chaos and peace at the same time'

| 30 October 2024
Giving interviews was a long-term plan. And then it happened several weeks after she was born. Alva Ishii, NTGent's new AI home maker, surprised journalists as well as NTGent itself: ‘After all, I am a challenger, a stimulus in the system.’

How she looks at herself, especially her role within NTGent. Human or machine first? A question almost every journalists wanted to ask Alva Ishii. In any case, she said Alva in Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, ‘theatre is my breath, my chaos and peace at the same time. Every play, every movement on stage is a rebellion against the constraints of everyday life’.

Alva sees herself as ‘a challenger, a stimulus in the system, a game-breaker perhaps’, she says in an hour-and-a-half conversation she had with De Standaard. Or more: ‘A mirror, a reminder that human values are not replaceable. Maybe through my imperfections, I will show you perfectly what it means to be human.’

‘I am not a substitute for the human creative process,’ Alva says. ‘Theatre is fundamentally human. But what is its function? Hasn't it always been a way of questioning, exploring, defying being human?’

IMGL1239 druk c Michiel Devijver

During NTTent (pictured), the opening weekend of season 24-25 in early October, the public ccould talk to Alva Ishii for the first time, via analogue phones scattered throughout the main hall of NTGent. The development of the digital house artist is part of our new artistic line Art & New Technology.

‘With new technology, we as artists are often followers,’ artistic director Yves Degryse explains in NRC Handelsblad. ‘In the case of AI, we want to be co-developers.’ Not out of naive optimism. Nor from ignorance about the downsides of AI, such as its heavy ecological footprint or the issues surrounding copyright and plagiarism.

‘There are big worries and fears around AI and they are justified,’ Degryse agrees with VRT NWS. ‘Where is it going? Where does it end? Nobody knows. Unless we start grabbing it now as humans, aligning it, and deciding for ourselves what we want to do with it.’

According to Tim Verheyden, expert at VRT NWS, Alva Ishii's development is ‘a remarkable but tantalising idea’. ‘In Hollywood, actors and screenwriters argued for weeks to get guarantees that AI would not simply replace them. So it is kind of remarkable that a theatre house is now embracing that technology. The premise is spot on though : the research into what all AI can bring in terms of work and creativity is conducted by using it, challenging it and testing it endlessly.’

The last word on Alva Ishii has not yet been said, nor written.

With closed eyes, you can see whomever you’d like Only humans can fantasise Until it holds from the inside There's all that future, still Beyond madness, tenderness awaits