What Theater for Tomorrow, or on the Way to an Intelligence that Isn’t so Artificial after All…

Abstract

Before addressing the problem of AI on stage, as a threat or ally, a quick review of the current situation is proposed, between two eras, to remind the reader of some strategies of a so-called digital theatre, a contradictory and unexpected ally of a millenary art. What are we talking about today, or what type of theater do we seek: theater versus technology, living art or virtual art? Is it about a conflict or simply an alliance, a new way of living and performing? Today the backstage has become electronic, or conversely, technology occupies the foreground, cameramen dressed in black follow the characters, images sometimes become spaces inhabited by actors, living beings, who can settle and evolve there, thanks to optical strategies, the scene-image is the conversion of the scene into an image, scene and image overlap until confusion. Initially, if AI seemed a simple logistical or technical auxiliary, today, even if it will not replace the human author, it is preparing to radically modify the creative relations. Digital theatre, in all its complexity, remains one of the contradictory and unexpected allies of a millenary theatre reinventing itself.