Perceptions. New Forms of Art / 2nd Edition – September–October 2025
Perceptions. New Forms of Art / 2nd Edition – September–October 2025
This unique artistic event takes theatre into a new dimension of experience – where art meets technology and classical forms are transformed by digital tools.
The festival showcases innovative theatre and performance projects that harness the latest technological advancements: augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), artificial intelligence, 3D projections, and interactive installations. These tools make it possible to create worlds that transcend the limits of imagination – immersive realities in which the audience becomes a participant and sensory perception reaches new levels of depth.
PERCEPTIONS is a space for experimentation and creative boldness. We aim to expand the boundaries of perception, challenge conventional frameworks, and propose new languages of artistic communication. We ask questions about the future of theatre in a digital world and provoke reflection on how technology can not only support but radically transform the creative process.
New technologies are not merely tools here – they become full-fledged co-creators of artistic expression. They amplify emotions, intensify sensations, and deconstruct space and time, opening viewers to previously unknown modes of experiencing art. With their help, theatre can reach deeper, move more powerfully, and act more broadly – transcending physical and mental barriers.
We invite you into a world where art and technology create a new universe of sensory and intellectual experience.
PERCEPTIONS. New Forms of Art is more than a festival – it is a laboratory for the future of theatre.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Program of the 2nd edition:
„Chatbot Challenge”
Interrobang
Teatr Stary / Lublin / Jezuicka 18
06.09.2025 / 19.00
„The Explorer’s Faith”
reż. Yen Tzu Chang
Studio TVP Lublin / H. Raabego 2
11. 09.2025 / 19.30
12.09.2025 / 19.30
“So-Called Humanity in Madness”
reż. Krzysztof Garbaczewski
Teatr J. Słowackiego in Kraków
Teatr Stary / Lublin / Jezuicka 18
21.09.2025 / 19.00
Free admission – tickets available at:
https://kicket.com/embedded/repertuar/1505?salesChannelId=0192b8ab-4b4d-7a2a-ab7e-f17ff3d3c6b4
“Chatbot Challenge” by Interrobang | Percepcje. New Forms of Art
On September 6, the Berlin-based collective Interrobang will open the second edition of the festival PERCEPCJE. New Forms of Art in Lublin with their performance “Chatbot Challenge” – a festival dedicated to exploring contemporary directions in performative arts and the complex relationship between humans and the digital world.
This experimental performance uses artificial intelligence and immersive technologies to transform classical stage forms into a live dialogue with the machine.
“Chatbot Challenge” is a high-stakes confrontation between human and algorithm, in which actors, a creative coder, and chatbots share the stage. Within this interactive theatrical structure, the audience becomes witness to a unique experiment: how much emotion, illusion, and truth can AI generate? Can chatbots become better performers than humans? And who is really directing this show?
The creators take us behind the scenes of digital systems, exposing their limitations, biases, and strategies of manipulation. At the same time, the performance doesn’t abandon the core tools of theater – using light, sound, bodies, and presence to create an experience that is both intellectually engaging and sensorially rich.
“Chatbot Challenge” is not just a technological experiment, but a profound reflection on the future of humanity in a world increasingly shaped by algorithms. It is a performance for those who want to understand what really happens when artificial intelligence looks at us – and performs with us – on stage.
Description
Chatbots are theatrical machines: they engage in lively dialogues, take on roles, and express and evoke emotions.
In CHATBOT CHALLENGE, two performers and a creative coder share the stage with chatbots and other AI systems. They explore the question: How much theater is in AI, and how much AI-theater have we already internalized? Starting from the core situation of theater – a live performance in front of an audience – the piece becomes an intimate encounter with global AI systems, their potential, and their strategies of deception. What happens when AI systems gain access to video, sound, stage, lighting, the bodies of the performers, and the reactions of the audience? Are chatbots the better performers? And how much work goes into their roles?
CHATBOT CHALLENGE explores the big societal questions and challenges brought about by the current rise of AI. It looks into the underlying systems that create AI, questioning how the profit-driven and often biased structures can be changed. How can we reveal and address the biases in AI systems? And how can AIs themselves contribute to answering these questions?
“The Explorer’s Faith”, as Chang Yen-Tzu’s latest masterpiece, is not only an innovative practice of technology and art fusion, but also a profound tribute to women’s history and contemporary reflection. This work, which will have its world premiere in Lublin, Poland, carries a temporal dialogue from past to present, constructing a contemporary narrative about courage, faith, and breakthrough through the expression of new media theater.
The core concept of the work stems from excavating the explorer spirit of women throughout history. From the abolition of foot-binding culture in early Taiwan to the opening of women’s education during the Japanese colonial period, each historical moment witnesses how women challenged social frameworks with steadfast faith. The courage and persistence of these historical figures serve not only as important nourishment for creation, but also as spiritual strength for modern women facing complex social challenges. In seemingly equal modern society, women actually still face new challenges unprecedented by their predecessors, including pressure to balance career and family, social expectations of body image, and invisible pressure from online communities.
Through camera depth sensing technology combined with image mapping, dancers’ bodies merge with projected visuals, creating an immersive experience that blurs virtual and real boundaries. The symbolic use of props such as ropes, fabric, and handmade human balloons, combined with precise lighting and sound design, creates an emotional transformation process from resistance, action, truth to embrace. “The Explorer’s Faith” hopes to touch audiences from different cultural backgrounds, fostering collective reflection on gender equality issues, allowing historical retrospection to become the driving force for modern progress.
Team
“So-Called Humanity in Madness” is one of the most innovative theatrical works in recent Polish theatre – an attempt to reconstruct a lost play by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz using artificial intelligence and immersive technologies.
Directed by Krzysztof Garbaczewski, the production gives voice not only to Witkacy himself but also to the machine – an AI system trained on his literary and philosophical output. The fragmented, mysterious original text was completed by artificial intelligence and adapted for the stage using VR, digital scenography, and character avatars.
The result is a performance that merges theatrical presence with digital abstraction. Reality and simulation constantly intersect: actors coexist with AI-generated environments, while the world of the play – in true Witkacian fashion – teeters between dream, grotesque, and philosophical prophecy.
“So-Called Humanity in Madness” is also an experiment in a new scenic language and a new model of artistic collaboration – international, networked, hybrid. The project is being developed in partnership with artistic teams from Germany and Ukraine, who collaborate in a shared virtual environment. The performance raises urgent questions about storytelling in the age of AI and what it means to create art beyond the limits of physical presence.
It is theatre of the future – deeply rooted in the avant-garde. A tribute to one of Poland’s greatest artistic visionaries, and an attempt to answer the question: who is the “so-called mad humanity” today?
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
