Plague (Berlin) \ James Ferraro

James Ferraro’s futuristic opera Plague was presented in full at transmediale 2018 together with CTM Festival in Berlin following the premiere of its work in progress (formerly titled The Deluge) at AND Festival 2017.

Set in a nightmarish simulation of humanity – a Brueghelian underground – musician and critical futurist Ferraro presented the show in full as part of a transmediale/CTM collaborative concert with scenographic elements and live visuals by Nate Boyce. We follow an Artificial Intelligence (AI) as they try to understand human suffering and emotion. As the AI struggles to emulate what it means to be human, tensions arise between the clinical gaze of the machine and the imperfection of its emulation.

The Deluge was commissioned by Abandon Normal Devices and Transmediale as part of The New Networked Normal (NNN). NNN explores art, technology and citizenship in the age of the Internet, a partnership project by Abandon Normal Devices (UK),  Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) (ES), The Influencers (ES), Transmediale (DE) and STRP (NL). This project has been co-funded with support from the Creative Europe programme. 

Plague was originally presented as The Deluge at AND Festival 2017, under the programme strand Listening to the Dark.