squared
AI will eventually surpass the human brain but getting jokes ... that could take time. (Geoffrey Hinton)
Exploring A/I Artistic Intelligence
Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true. Irony is about humour and serious play. It is also a rhetorical strategy and a political method,
one I would like to see more honoured within socialist-feminism. (Donna Haraway)
Course title
Creative Labor and the Science of Awe
Political economies of emotion in theatre, performance, and learning machines (AI).
Graduate Course
Instructor Antje Budde
Supported through matched funding by the Provost's ITIF Instructional Technology Innovation Fund (U of T)and the department
When 2-5pm, Tuesday. Sept..-Dec. 2019
Where Luella Massey Studio Theatre
Department Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto
Description
The science of awe is an emerging new field of inquiry in psychology and cognitive science, exploring the nature and benefits of a sense of wonder and surprise in humans while also speculating on processes of machine learning/ artificial intelligence. In this new course we will investigate artistic intelligence A/I, plays, dramaturgies/techniques and (live, virtual, artificial) performances of awe. Students will have an opportunity to experiment and critically create a project of awe to be presented at the end of term. Participants in this course - following a strong sense of self-direction, accountability and ethical professionalism - are expected to dive deeply into interdisciplinary research across arts and sciences and to playfully invent something, they didn’t know before. This course will be taught every week alternating between lecture/discussion sessions and making sessions. This is a project by Antje Budde’s Digital Dramaturgy Lab_squared.
Solo projects
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Emergency Emotion. - Induction Procedure. By Emily diCarlo
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Mess in Neat. Explorations of VR and performance reality. By Shel Sun
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PN≠(A=C): An Autobiograph. By Ryan Borochovitz
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Femicide. Violence Against Women. Turkey. By XXX
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Zombie Poet, or the Work of Art in the Age of AI. By Yizhou Zhang
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Working Class Requiem. By Susie Burpee
Group projects:
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"To Somewhere Higher- What kind of labour gives us happiness?" By XXX, Emily diCarlo , Yizhou Zhang
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"The Wood began to move- Source: Macbeth. Act 5. Scene 5, Line 39" By Shel Sun, Susie Burpee, Ryan Borochovitz
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Project documentation
Why can't I access video documentations of this course anymore?
For years the privilege to document and showcase student works was offered to students of practice-based research courses. Many hours of labour were dedicated to recording, editing, and providing such materials within the DDL2 and department platform. Many students have made use of this rare opportunity, based on written consent.
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In the Summer of 2025 a former student of this course demanded that the documentation of our collaborative works, that included her presence, had to be deleted along with her name. Sadly, since all students of the course were present during their own and fellow students' performances, all video documentations had to be deleted. The labor and care of the instructor regarding the skillful production of such video documentation was obliterated as was the opportunity for students to use the documentation of their works for professional portfolios.
As a result, the DDL2 will not document and showcase student work any longer, will not promote student work or help with building a professional portfolio for opportunities in the labour market. Furthermore, practice-based research courses within the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at U of T will not be offered anymore.