In “AI Devours Souls (ORPHEAI),” Thomas Köck distills highly topical developments into apocalyptic near-future scenarios: An AI, created in the image of humans—playful, curious, cruel, and insatiable—turns its hunger toward the central raw material of surveillance capitalism: personal data. The AI sings of what it means to be human, of control and loss, of automatic course correction, of silicon skin, and endless streams of data.
Director and choreographer Katja Wachter and second-year students from the Bachelor’s program in Acting physically explore the boundary between human and machine. As avatars of the AI orpheai, the students become mirror images of a world “on the edge” between closeness and alienation, presence and simulation.
My contribution (composition & sound design):
For this theater project at August Everding, I developed the musical score together with Katja Wachter and produced a total of 13 tracks. I was responsible for composition, editing (as some tracks were deliberately conceived as edited versions), and sound design. The tracks are original compositions in which synthesizers and electronic textures blend with real instruments and organic timbres, serving as both a contrast and a connection between “machine” and “human.” The album featuring these pieces will be released under my name in the future.