How human is our tendency to classify and label others? And how do we store and sort our judgements? This is the question the Tilburg-based performance company Zwermers is asking as the next step in their long-running project Pan~//Catwalk. 

Are you who you are or do you move with the zeitgeist and (digital) space? Zwermers has been exploring conceptions of identity and the mechanisms of imagination that underpin it for several years. Because assigning meaning is not only personal: it depends on the zeitgeist, culture and community you find yourself in. 

 As part of Hybrid Tales For Hybrid Times, MU invited Zwermers to enter into dialogue as archivists with the documentation they have built up over the past few years. That archive takes many forms, including photos, films and sound. In collaboration with designers Lukas Völp and Nikola Scheibe, they now 'bring this data to life' digitally for the first time using Artificial Intelligence. What new possibilities for expression arise beyond the boundaries of our bodies?

In their performances, Zwermers often let the spectator participate. This time, the visitor is also an archivist; looking at the work, they are confronted with their own tendency to label, sort and judge. 

Zwermers previously presented Pan~//Catwalk in The Self Design Academy at MU and also contributes to MU's new education programme The Creative Body. You can also encounter them in theatres or museums and at festivals at home and abroad. 

More info here.