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dmstfctn

@dmstfctn

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LAF Lecture Series: dmstfctn
November 4th, 3PM - 5PM, online (registration per mail to: liveartforms@adbk-nuernberg.de)

dmstfctn is a London-based artist duo exploring complex systems through simulation, fiction, and experience. Their immersive performances, video installations and video games demystify systems by replicating and exploring them together with audiences, and 're-mystify' them by building new stories and worlds on top of them.

Since 2018, dmstfctn have performed and exhibited internationally at institutions including Serpentine, Berghain, HKW, SOLO Contemporary, and at festivals such as Unsound, transmediale, CTM. They have collaborated with leading scientific institutions, including The Alan Turing Institute and Supercomputer Leonardo. Since 2025, dmstfctn are n-Space fellows at Somerset House Studios.

Image: Big things coming (2026) at Chemist Gallery, London, Gabriel Cautain

#lecture #liveartforms #laf #techne #dmstfctn #performanceart #adbknurembreg #master

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Tonight ⮕ ⚪️ AVnight at @hevrekazimierz !
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❗️Tickets available on Going. [link in bio] or at the venue.
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What happens when artificial intelligence is sent to purgatory for cheating during training?

𝙒𝙖𝙡𝙪𝙞𝙜𝙞’𝙨 𝙋𝙪𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 is an interactive performance by @dmstfctn , @natan.kryszk and @evitamanji , immersing audiences in a surreal AI world filled with anomalies, contradictions and unpredictable behaviours.

Inspired by the concept of the 'Waluigi Effect', the project questions the limits of human control over AI and whether artificial intelligence can ever be fully aligned with human expectations.

Here, the audience is more than just an observer. Using their smartphones, participants make decisions on behalf of the AI, actively shaping the unfolding performance.

Presented in collaboration with the @britishcouncilpoland as part of the UK/Poland Season 2025 – Legacy Grant Programme in 2026.

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Also performing at Hevre tonight are @emiko_visual_artist and @manoid.live , whose collaborative project explores human relationships with technology, digital intimacy and the sensory overload of contemporary media environments.

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AVnight 2 | av performances live
16 October | 21:00 | Hevre+1

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‘The experimental-filmmaking duo dmstfctn (pronounced demystification) adopt an irreverent approach to technologies of the future.’

Back in August, @kezkurtz reviewed dmstfctn’s show, ‘Big things coming’, at Chemist Gallery. The film’s protagonist, Degular, returns on 18th October in a new film commissioned by Somerset House Studios as part of its 10th anniversary celebration, ‘3 Evenings’. Viewers can also now interact with the world of the film by playing ‘Big things coming (human in the loop)’ at playground.dmstfctn.net.

Ahead of ‘3 Evenings’ this weekend, we’re reminding ourselves of ‘Big things coming’ and Kezia Kurtz’s review.

Read more through the link in our bio.

@dmstfctn @chemist.gallery @somersethousestudios

📸Big things coming (2026)©️Gabriel Cautain, @gabrielcautain

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Degular, a data-labeller by day and rapper by night, steps into the spotlight at 3 Evenings: Sunday, performing lyrics put together by you, the audience.

Somerset House Studios artist duo @dmstfctn's interactive intervention, Big things coming (human in the loop) invites you to train Degular's language and influence its rap performance by playing a language game.

Visit playground.dmstfctn.net to play the game and train Degular.

A selection of lines from the game will be voiced and recorded by rapper @jawnino for a screening at 3 Evenings: Sunday and on 3ETV. Submit your lines by 9 Oct to be included.

3 Evenings: Sunday
18 Oct
Limited tickets available, book via link in bio.

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AVnight 2: @dmstfctn & @natan.kryszk @evitamanji / @emiko_visual_artist & @manoid.live | audiovisual performances live

16.10 | 21:00-23:00 | @hevrekazimierz +1
⚪️ Tickets ⮕ [ʟɪɴᴋ ɪɴ ʙɪᴏ]
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⚪️ Waluigi's Purgatory | dmstfctn _UK & Natan Kryszk _PL & Evita Manji _GR
⚪️ Music for Voices and Skipped Heartbeats | Emiko Okime & MANOID _PL
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AV Night 2 on Friday evening at Hevre +1 brings together two distinct audiovisual performances that approach this year’s 𝘿𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢 𝙎𝙞𝙢 theme from different perspectives. One takes the audience into an interactive AI world where rules, predictability, and control begin to break down. The other focuses on the relationship between humans and technology, digital intimacy, emotion, and the sensory overload of contemporary media environments.

Two different artistic languages, two separate experiences, and two perspectives on a reality increasingly co-shaped by technology.

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Dmstfcn performance is presented in collaboration with the @britishcouncilpoland as part of the UK/Poland Season 2025 – Legacy Grant Programme 2026.
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Find out more on our website: ᴘᴀᴛᴄʜʟᴀʙ[ᴅᴏᴛ]ᴘʟ

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Big things coming (human in the loop) is a new interactive intervention by Somerset House Studios artist duo @dmstfctn.

Visit the link in our bio to play language games and write new lines for Degular, a data-labeller by day and rapper by night. A selection will be voiced and recorded by @jawnino for a screening at 3 Evenings: Sunday and on 3ETV.

Trained to describe the world through objective, manageable language, Degular struggles when confronted with something that cannot be labelled. As his language begins to fail, a new form of expression emerges.

3 Evenings: Sunday
18 Oct
Limited tickets available, book via link in bio.

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Join us for the next Arms Industry Wikithon on Thursday October 15th, at Somerset House Studios and online.
1) Andy Burnham with a Trident submarine, 2) a 2009 Joint Chiefs of Staff memo detailing how to calculate the “Non Combatant Casualty Value” (the “acceptable” collateral damage of a military target), 3) a photograph by Tomoko Yoneda, of a B52 bomber returning to Fairford, England after bombing Iraq in 2003, 4) fibre optic cables left by drones in tree canopy, Ukraine, 5) a poster made by Greenham Women Against Cruise, from 1983
sign up here: https://luma.com/ymdu31jp

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The final 3 Evenings event brings live performances by @preciousreneetucker, @lynn.l.leeson and @ligiamlewis to Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, alongside interactive interventions and installations across all three nights.

Precious Renee Tucker presents a new piano performance in collaboration with a team of astrophysicists and technologists to transcribe exoplanetary weather, while Ligia Lewis combines performance and augmented, spatialised sound to explore the failure of communication. Lynn Hershman Leeson's Constructing Roberta sees her fictional alter ego return to explore identity, authenticity and self-presentation in the age of online culture.

Plus, @dmstfctn's Big things coming, where audience interactions with a language game shapes Degular's rap performance, voiced by @jawnino. Alongside world premieres from @ayoung___kim, @_keiken_ , @xin_liu_studio and a reimagined work by @rokos_basilixx.

Wapping Hydraulic Power Station
Sun 18 Oct, 3–7.30pm
£25 / £20 concessions/ weekend passes available -- book via link in bio

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Increasingly I find myself noticing the overlaps between art game performance and traditions of puppetry, so I was thrilled when Sarah Reimann, Head of Programming at 𝗛𝗔𝗨, invited me to write for them and greenlit a dive into this theatrical subsector!

By reading performance projects by dmstfctn (aka Oliver Smith and Francesco Tacchini), Moshe Linke and Philip Wölk, Callen Langford of Fantasia Malware with Zane Hettinga, Janne Kummer and Harold Hejazi, the resulting text 𝘈𝘯 𝘈𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘐𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘴𝘦: 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 21𝘴𝘵 𝘊𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘵 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴 begins to suggest these that complex multimedia assemblages have a lot to do with Japanese Bunraku and Thing Theatre. Beyond technical and dramaturgical relations, the article hints towards similar preoccupations between our present moment and the 1800s, linking AI to figures such as 𝘗𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘰 and Olympia from 𝘋𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘯.

I also had to get in an opening mention to Peggy Ahwesh’s 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘵, which set the groundwork for these pieces and more widely for artist machinima.

Again a huge thanks to Sarah, HAU and the artists for making this possible! The article is available from the link in my bio.

@hauberlin
@dmstfctn
@moshelinke
@laurinw__
@terradactyl_orchid
@fantasiamalware
@_platz__halter_
@__jxjxjx__
@haroldhejazi
#SideQuest
#HAU
#Puppetry

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#BecomingImage [𝗽𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁] 🎧 𝗘𝟭: 𝗪𝗵𝗼’𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲? [w/ dmstfctn]
> link in bio

Who are we when our identities are shaped through interfaces, #datasets, and platforms? And what does it mean to see, to be seen, or to become visible when every act of seeing is mediated by software?
🕹️
In the first episode of the #podcast, 𝗥𝗲𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗰𝗮 𝗘𝗱𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 welcomes London-based duo @dmstfctn (𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗼 𝗧𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗶 and 𝗢𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗵) to discuss their decade-long collaboration exploring simulation, fiction, and the hidden systems shaping contemporary digital life. Focusing on their “God Mode” trilogy and latest artwork 𝐵𝑖𝑔 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 (2026), the conversation moves through AI reward hacking, synthetic training data, algorithmic misbehaviour, simulated supermarkets, theatrical game engines, and self-playing #videogames.

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Two more weeks to catch @dmstfctn’s Big things coming. Open Friday & Saturday 12 ~ 6, Sunday 12 ~ 4

Photo: @gabrielcautain

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