Who creates whom? URLAND explores art and artificiality
Performance collective URLAND dives into artificial intelligence (AI) and questions what art means in the digital age. Are we even still necessary? With cloned voices and a script partially generated by ChatGPT, URLAND toys with AI—or is it the other way around? Formerly Known As is a surreal, Blade Runner-esque meta-performance that challenges the shifting meaning of art. Performed in English.
In Formerly Known As, URLAND explores the role of art in a digital world. Collaborating with artificial intelligence, they pose big questions: What is the value of art if AI can create it too? And who’s really in control—the human or the machine?
The performance is a surreal and disorienting theatrical experiment, filled with cloned voices and a script co-written by ChatGPT. The line between the real and the artificial blurs. You’re watching a collective making a performance with AI… about a collective making a performance with AI. And so it loops. A meta-narrative that circles around one core question: What does it mean to be human in a world saturated with technology?
The style evokes sci-fi classics like Blade Runner. It’s a dark, futuristic universe where anything seems possible. At the same time, it’s humorous and playful, offering sharp reflections on the present. AI is everywhere: in our phones, in art, in daily life. But what happens when it starts taking our place as the creator?
The performance raises questions without offering easy answers. Is this art, or can it be discarded? What happens to us when we can no longer distinguish real from fake? And if creativity is no longer uniquely human, what makes us special?
URLAND tackles these themes in a way that sparks thought. They take you into a world of confusion, recognition, and surprise. You may see yourself in the performers, or in the doubts they express. And maybe—just maybe—you’ll leave the theater with a different perspective on technology and creation.
Formerly Known As is a performance about the collision between creator and creation, between human and machine. A thrilling, clever, and at times bewildering experience you won’t soon forget.
This performance is part of SHIFT, an initiative by Explore the North and Stadsschouwburg De Harmonie.
SHIFT presents raw, honest, timely, and disruptive performing arts. You come to SHIFT to understand what’s happening—in your mind, in the world, with others, and within yourself, on both grand and intimate scales. For curious thinkers and critical dreamers.
Throughout the year, SHIFT offers must-see performances in unconventional locations—off the beaten theater path. From spoken word to postmodern dance. From theatrical manifestos to poetic requiems. These works by emerging and established makers speak to the present and the future.