Alliance of International Production Houses

Geumhyung Jeong creates performative assemblages, in which her own body comes into contact with self-made robotic sculptures. In her new piece the South Korean choreographer interacts with machines that have already accompanied her in other performances. The ‘toy robots’ have the disarming charm of amateurs. They are made up of components obtained from specialist medical or technical websites. Jeong puts these elements to new uses in a do-it-yourself mode involving the basic elements of programming. The robots’ action radius is limited. Their movements are ungainly.
Jeong’s relationship with the robots is shaped by a constant fluctuation of ‘trial and error’’. She tries to upgrade them with new elements and tricks. However, these test runs do not always go according to plan. For the artist, the current ban on cultural events is therefore a welcome excuse not to prove her robots in front of a large audience and to confront the fears of occurring errors in public. Instead of a successful live test, Jeong invites the viewers to follow TEST RUN online and shares her story of errors and failures. A multi-layered, absurd narrative evolves with intimate encounters at its heart rather than dystopic visions or technoid fantasies and this raises questions about the relationship between man and machine: how do we shape the beginning of a technologically-defined future, who is in the lead and who is the dinosaur – the phase-out model?

Concept & Performance: Geumhyung Jeong
Filming Frankfurt: Ayla Pierrot Arendt
Editing: Geumhyung Jeong
Production Management: partner in crime

A production by Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in co-production with PACT Zollverein. A work commissioned by the festival Frankfurter Positionen 2021, an initiative of the BHF-Bank Foundation. Supported within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses and by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.