ABOUT MAGICA MACHINA
Magica Machina defines the team, methods, technologies, and artistic direction behind plays such as SH4DOW and PARADISE.
Magica Machina explores the space between art and technology through theatre and the performing arts. The name draws inspiration from two concepts: deus ex machina “god from the machine” and laterna magica, the magic lantern - both phenomenons of earlier times fascination with technology and art. Together, these references reflect our ongoing exploration of the possibilities and challenges of modern machines, and the fascination and unease they provoke in us.
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
Magica Machina is not only defined by its team and technological methods, but also by an artistic approach to storytelling that seeks to engage with contemporary challenges in global society. By asking difficult questions and highlighting issues that demand attention, we aim to offer our audiences new perspectives and reflections they can carry back into their own communities, sparking the important conversations we need to have with one another.
Our performances are therefore structured in a way that allows the audience, to some extent, to
co-create the experience each night. Audience members are invited to contribute by sharing their reflections and questions with the AI or the actors, shaping the performance in real time.
Talks, lectures, or workshops can easily be integrated before or after a performance, further extending the dialogue and deepening the learning around the themes explored - whether it is AI, the climate crisis, data economics, ethics, global politics, or possible futures.
WHO IS MAGICA MACHINA
Magica Machina is a ensemble of experienced professionals from a variuation of different creative fields. Together, they combine the core creative team behind our plays, daring to ask questions and investigate the biggest challenges of our time.
Mikael Fock - Producer, director and playwright
Mikael Fock is an award-winning stage-director, Art Tech developer, and producer.
Until 2022, CEO and Artistic Director of THE CULTUREYARD / Elsinore / Denmark and founder of the Art Tech Festival CLICK. With a background as theater director and media artist Mikael Fock, has been directing and developing a large number of theater performances especially in the field of Art and technology and immersive theater, nationally and internationally.
Art and Technology development is the artistic driver and he has been a pioneer in developing and producing performances in the transition between generative visual art, 3D, new immersive hybrid performances and use of artificial intelligence and generative AI in the latest performances. MF has developed an immersive digital stage, - the 4D box, in which he has directed and produced numerous digital art productions for theater.
Vertigo - Light design
Vertigo is an artist collective consisting of Frederik Hilmer Svanholm, Vibeke Bertelsen, Jeppe Dejbjerg and Mikkel Meyer and is acclaimed at home and abroad for the way of applying new technology to create immersive installations and scenographies using light and sound. Based in Vesterbro - Copenhagen, the team is specialised in the design and development of both generative art and scenic designs for cultural and communicative purposes. Vertigo's creations are uniquely built for their intended use; thus, they design for indoor and outdoor purposes and in large scale as needed. Among other projects, Vertigo has received significant recognition for their work, including their immersive scenographies for The Danish National Symphony Orchestra's experimental Soundtrack Series, which has reached over 500 million viewers.
Own website: https://www.vertigo.dk/projects
Carl Emil Carlsen - Visual artist
Carl Emil Carlsen is an artist and designer who creates audiovisual interactive experiences with an algorithmic approach. His works incorporate sensory mixed-reality illusions, generative processes, and visual music in the exploration of themes such as speculative futures, techno-utopias, and digital nature. His installations and performances have been shown at, among others, Ars Electronica (Linz), Transmediale (Berlin), Nikolaj Kunsthal (Copenhagen), and Click Festival (Elsinore).
Own website: http://cec.dk
Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm - AI artist
Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm is an award-winning artist who has been pioneering the use of artificial intelligence (such as LLM, GPT), since 2016. Her works have been exhibited at Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), Ars Electronica, Biennale Nemó, Wellcome Collection and Copenhagen Contemporary. Notably, she created the first-ever AI and blockchain artwork in space aboard NASA’s part of the International Space Station. Her contributions to digital art have been recognized by major media outlets like Forbes and the New York Times. Falkenstrøm has received numerous global awards, including the Lumen Prize for Digital Art in 2017 and 2021, an Honorary Mention from Prix Ars Electronica in 2023, and the TECHNE Award from the British Arts and Humanities Research Council. She studied Fine Art at University of the Arts London and Royal College of art in London.
Own website: https://www.artificialmind.ai/
AWARDS AND HONORS
2023
2023
ÅRETS REUMERT
The Special Prize for SH4DOW
ARS ELEKTRONCA
For SH4DOW in the category AI and Live Art
PRESS
“☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
...It is insanely beautiful, wildly impressive, and quite fascinating”
“Now it is only the imagination that sets the limits for what can emerge when theatre and the digital meet in a unified artistic expression”
“☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
SH4DOW creates a beautiful and playfully intelligent interactive game with the shadow sides of humanity and machines”
“SH4DOW is a beautiful and thought-provoking artistic commentary on one of the major issues of our time”
“It is an impressive experiment with spectacular 3D lighting so wild that we forget it is a stage and not a computer screen.”
“SH4DOW is a very special experience. I was both fascinated and frightened along the way by the capabilities of technology.”
THE 4D BOX
Magica Machina’s performances are done in the so-called 4D Art Box which form the basis of our digital performance development opportunities. The 4D Art Box combines a list of technologies that can be put together in different ways.
Read more about the 4D BOX here.