INTRO

Our design research method has evolved since the work began in 2021 when the use of artificial intelligence was not yet so widespread and accessible to everyone. The research opportunity was created by the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in collaboration with the Arshake magazine for the Roma Europa Festival event. (https://www.arshake.com/audience-on-stage-al-ref21/) We explored the theme of the 'emancipated spectator' based on Rancière's text, seeking to integrate an artificial spectator into the real performance. Each performance was documented through videos and articles to investigate the role of the spectator and the dynamics of emancipation in art and performance. At a certain point in the research, we were able to create an artificial spectator by giving it a face, a voice, and a story using specific applications. The Roma Europa Festival event provided a significant opportunity to explore these themes and test our design research approach. Subsequently, the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome invited us to continue our artistic experimentation for the EU4ART project throughout the year 2022. This involved producing a video performance using machine learning techniques that were in the early stages of cultural debates on Artificial Intelligence, text generation, and video generation. Our main aim was to explore how listeners/spectators would react to and attribute meaning to artificially generated content; we wanted to study the cognitive and perceptual processes related to the interpretation of such content.