For the first time in India, an AI performer and human actors will collaborate together on stage in an interactive theatre play, called Climateprov.

The intent of the performance is to ultimately encourage the audience to think critically about the role of technology and art in addressing urgent issues like climate emergency. It will be performed on 26th March at the Bangalore International Centre, Bengaluru, India, under the FutureFantastic Festival, an AI and new media festival. 

On the spot performance, based on audience inputs

Climateprov has no linear story with a plot and characters. Stories will be created on the spot, based on the audience’s suggestions and inputs like a fictional climate crisis that might affect their city in the future or a recent news article they have read about climate change.

The AI and human performers will then improvise together to craft playful narratives that offer a unique perspective on the subject. The human actors will lead the AI and vice versa, but at one point, the AI performer will take over completely.

AI application used

According to the creators of the performance, improv and AI have a lot in common. The press release states: "Improv’s nature to extrapolate meaning from seemingly unconnected prompts and generate a cohesive story is similar to how a generative AI model also works."

Climateprov uses a custom-built AI application that integrates speech recognition, text generation models like GPT3 and GPT 3.5, and text-to-image generation models such as DALLE and Stable Diffusion. The AI is then visualised and presented to the audience, giving them a visual reference of the technology to interact with it in real time. The team had a work-in-progress showcase at Ranga Shankara, Bengaluru, on 12th March this year. There they also featured an avatar of a climate scientist, which was fine-tuned with the GPT3 model.

In fact, at their work-in-progress shows, the human performers and AI worked together to build scenes around two issues in Bengaluru, the froth in Bellandur lake and last year's floods in Outer Ring Road.

The idea for Climateprov

The artistes behind Climateprov first met during the BeFantastic Within Fellowship, an online Fellowship organised in May-June 2022 and brought together technologists, coders, artists, movement practitioners, and other creative individuals across four countries together to explore AI as an artistic collaborator. At the end of the Fellowship, they invited proposals from the Fellows for further funding and support. It was here that Climateprov was pitched. The pitch was accepted.

Blessin Varkey, an Indian improvisation practitioner and software engineer, had come up with the idea of Climateprov. Gaurav Singh Nijjer, an Indian theatre-maker and creative technologist; Ranji David, an Indian theatre and visual artist; and Tajinder Singh, a UK-based creative working with digital moving images and designs, worked collaboratively as primary Fellows to design and develop the show. Joining them as secondary fellows were Monica Hirano, a performance artiste and curator from Brazil, and Tiz Creel, a UK-based creative technologist, who made significant contributions to the project.

The cast members, performers and collaborators in the show include Blessin Varkey (India), Gaurav Singh Nijjer (India), Monica Hirano (Brazil), Marie-Eve Hildebrand (Switzerland), Ranji David (India), Tajinder Singh Dhami (United Kingdom), Tiz Creel (United Kingdom) and an AI performer, who doesn't have a name yet, but is very excited to join its human co-performers on stage.

FutureFantastic is conceptualised by BeFantastic (India) in partnership with FutureEverything (UK).

Show details

⏰ 5:30 pm and 7:30 pm, Sunday 26 March 2023

ℹ️ 75 mins, English with other languages

📍Bangalore International Centre (BIC), Domlur

🎟️ Free entry with prior registration at www.futurefantastic.in

Inputs from a press release