An undead Steve Jobs crawls around in a purgatorial wasteland of physical and digital sewage. Partly disgusted, partly enthralled by the world he has so significantly contributed to, Jobs finds himself only a pawn in a much bigger scheme of history: he is the surrogate of a deranged AI, a data mongrel comprised of all our networked activity. The AI is the main actor in this commissioned performance by musician and composer James Ferraro. In collaboration with visual artist Nate Boyce, PHØNIX16, and the actor Christoph Schüchner, Ferraro has created a stage-based audiovisual spectacle, an infernal vision of our socially networked post-digital times. Fusing modern classical composition with post-digital aesthetics, the world of Plague hints at the coming automation of human destructiveness.

Warning: strobe lights are used during this performance.

Plague is presented in cooperation with CTM Festival and commissioned by transmediale and Abandon Normal Devices as part of The New Networked Normal, with the support of the Creative Europe program of the European Union.

The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of its contents, which only reflect the views of the authors; the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.