The Performance of Critique

This research project is situated at the intersections of art history and theory, and draws on performance studies. It starts from a critique of how AI technologies have been increasingly implemented in society. This has led to a form of cybernetic capitalism whose algorithmic operations are to 80 % programmed by men and significantly impacts gender, sex, and race- based forms of discriminationbesides accelerating the automation of specific human labour. In light of this context, my project develops an original materialist feminist framework to analyse how artistic performance practices have incorporated generative and embodied AI technologies in their body-based work over the last decade. Overall, the project develops the notion of performance criticism to analyse differences and similarities between bodily (identity-based) and machinic intelligence. Specifically, I explore how artistic works make visible the structural impact of AI technologies on forms of social discrimination and how the kinaesthetic performance of bodily identity shapes subjectification.