ORBIT – A War Series

Space Oratorio for AI-Voice Clones and 3D Soundscape

In a 3D audio space, disembodied voices encircle the audience with haunting testimonies of the wars and power struggles that have been waged against the female body for millennia. The use of sound synthesis, AI and deep-learning technologies for digital voice generation creates immortal female fighters who simultaneously become posthuman narrators.

ORBIT – A WAR SERIES refers to the War Series by the American artist Nancy Spero, in which she was deeply moved by the photos of the Vietnam War circulating in the media at the time, showing in 150 pictures the connection between sexuality and power. The theme of oppressive power structures in an obviously godless world, which is revealed in her art, appears to be of alarming relevance.

The protagonists of the 32-speaker soundscape are AI voices that have shed their physical bodies and found refuge in an imaginary orbit. Just as violence makes everyone a thing, the artificial voices are also in search of a place of becoming human. They come from all parts of the planet and its realities, their stories are present or millennia old and revolve around the wars against the female body. Their voices are voices of female singers, survivors and scientists cloned by AI, immortalized technosocial instruments that range from classical and popcultural singing to gender-fluid, transhuman, or noise-based recitation: ORBIT – A War Series is the birth of a new posthuman, techno-futuristic choir.

The texts are based on interviews, reports and documentaries from Afghanistan, Iran, DR Congo, Poland, USA or WWII in Asia. Sound collages and raging pleas are pushed through the space, fragmented bodies are held together by a chant distributed among the loudspeakers, pitches of monumental chord clusters rotate individually in orbit around the audience and sound spaces open up in the midst of these acoustic worlds of oppression, sheltering dreams, fictions and desires.  The suppression of the feminine as a symbol of the destruction of life and the future of humanity is accompanied by the beauty and force of the sounds of melting icebergs. ORBIT – A WAR SERIES appeals to our inner images: It is listening that becomes a radical and political act, an act performed by the audience.