TECHNOMANCY is a speculative performance ritual evoking and queering technologies for divination—from ancient astrology to artificial intelligence.
TECHNOMANCY began as a question about what futures unfold from the computational oracles that interpret our current time. How does a machine simulate processes of imagination and thought? How does it sense and sense-make? How does an algorithm perform? How do technologies shape what we imagine, and how? What happens when technologies for divination are replaced by divination by technology, when prophecy is replaced with prediction? How do we practice imagination? How do we update our cosmologies to hold a reality we continue to materially alter? How do we read and interpret signs in a universe saturated with our own inscriptions?
During their residency at K3, Gry researched Fake Astrology—the study of artificial satellites and their astrological impact in an artificial night—and an Oracle Machine—a predictive algorithm trained through dance—embodied in the interactive objects and dramaturgy of TECHNOMANCY. The work approaches these objects as a technology for movement, and as a prosthetic interface for communicating with the unknown.
TECHNOMANCY explores an array of technologies, some more possible than others, some analog and other specialized, some that are imaginary and some that engage with imagination.
It ends with the technology of imagination. During the performance, the Oracle Machine analyzes the dancing in real-time to predict the future of the dance. Tasked to choreograph the end, the Oracle generates a prophecy that continues to write the choreography beyond the point that it is performed on stage: a final scene that takes place in the virtuality of imagination.
Immersed in darkness, TECHNOMANCY is artificial divination for fictive bodies populating synthetic futures.
TECHNOMANCY is a sensorial experience in the dark, which unfolds just as much in the imagination and body of the audience as on stage in front of them.
ORACLE TECHNOLOGIES
"Technology is the active human interface with the material world." - Ursula K. Le Guin
Following Le Guin, the project understands technology as how we do things, which is not synonymous to specialized technology, even if that is an interpretation easy to make by default today. Instead, we understand technology as what we can learn to do, and how; cut wood, carry things or cook food; a saw just as much as a computer. Throughout history, people have developed technologies for divination, tools forreading and interpreting the world and the future through the interpretation of signs.
TECHNOMANCY features an Oracle Machine—a Machine Learning algorithm that has been both trained by us and training us throughout the rehearsal process. The interactive objects on stage contain sensors that measure how the objects move in real-time: the force and speed of motion, moments of stillness, and the proximity and orientation of each object in space.
Bodies, objects, hardware and software, we rehearsed and trained together in the studio. As we were training the Machine Learning algorithm, it trained us to train it better. The TECHNOMANCY Oracle is the interface between these bodies, these objects and this algorithm. The system built a statistical memory: every session was recorded, every session profiled, every pattern archived. This data continues to be collected throughout the performance.
During the performance, the Oracle analyzes the dancing in real-time, comparing what is happening live to the accumulated memory of all previous sessions. The Oracle is asked to simulate an imagination and generate a language: a prophecy that continues to write the choreography beyond the point it is performed on stage, writing a final scene that takes place in the virtuality of imagination.
It ends with the technology of imagination—and the audience become the technomancers.
TECHNOMANCY is a dance and an Oracle Machine. The dance is a divinatory reading which channels the satellites in the sky. The dramaturgy is continuously built using the FAKE ASTROLOGY Oracle Deck which charts the relationship between different categories ofsatellites—like earth observation, space exploration, military, communication, space junk—with other celestial bodies like the moon, sun, and earth. The deck was used both as a dramaturgical tool to map and gather the imaginations, fictions, bodies, images, relationships, and materials that we encountered during the process, and as a tool to generate and organize choreographic material. The dramaturgy of TECHNOMANCY emerges from divination practices tobecome its own technology of divination.
TESTIMONIES FROM THE AUDIENCE
"My imagination was running wild."
"I was in the deep sea with bioluminescent creatures, then I was in outer space"
"It reminded me of looking up at the stars as a child, but I was looking into a world where the distinction between human and non-human is gone."
"My first imagination was not of technology, but of other forms of life. It was very organic but then there was something artificial too. It was really uncanny."
"To me, it felt like a nightmare."
"It felt like an invitation to daydream, breathe, to rest...to surrender into the rhythm of the shapeshifting figures on stage."
"I enjoyed the silence. I could somehow forget about being human and just feel."
"The beginning was super nice, when I couldn’t see exactly, clearly, what was on stage and I was trying to figure out what I was looking at the whole time. I couldn’t tell how many performers there were, because there were just these objects rolling together, because the objects where also bodies and the bodies were also objects. And I really enjoyed not knowing."
"I was impressed by the detail and development of the movement material."
"It creates an exciting uncertainty in the perception of the audience."
"An incredible journey of imagination, images, and memories within an uncanny space and atmosphere—an underwater world, a deserted land, an abandoned cave...there is a sense of depth with glimpses of humor."
"To me, it was not a trio, but a group piece of many subject-object creatures."
"I absolutely loved the sound and its spatial installation. I also appreciate the attention to details—whenever it comes to working with light and projection or even having your nail polish for ultraviolet light… It made this very specific world welcoming and inviting, encouraging a deep dive into it."
"I sensed right from the beginning that we were being pulled underwater, we are being asked to just soften, and kind of melt into another realm, and that realm felt like it was inhabited by other creatures and other entities. They were hard to see but you could feel them. They were kind of rolling and moving softly and there was a sense of them being non-human. In the sounds and the darkness you could feel something was growing, slowly, and as these individual forms grew, they also seemed to coalesce and come together and at a certain point I understood that I was in the realm, like I was transported into the other world, and that I was going to rest in that space throughout the duration of the performance. And so I let my consciousness and my body melt into that space, and there was a kind of mirroring that I felt internally, that tough I was still, as I was watching it, I felt like I was in a parallel universe and I was moving with the forms—even the idea that the forms were possibly touching me."
"TECHNOMANCY made me remember how comforting it is to be immersed in darkness. I had a feeling of a smooth kind of energy, I was watching from a liminal space, feeling awake and not awake, my imagination put me at the bottom of the ocean, and I felt like saw things I was not supposed to see or things things that were hidden, like a treasure. I loved that the experience felt so private, even though I was watching with other people. It felt very cinematic and special in so many different ways—through color, through sound, through words, through movement—and it is really something you have to experience in the room, because the energy, the atmosphere that is created is really an experience."
"I really enjoyed how the objects, the materials, they were really integrated into the show. All the objects were also part of the dance, for the whole time, and I think that is quite unusual. In this case everything was integrated, the light, the stage design, they were all like one part of a whole and it felt really connected. I think that is the strength of the work, that the choreography, the objects, the lights and the sound are all really one thing."
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
The performance is frontal and made for a blackbox with the audience seated on the floor.
Duration: 55 min
TECHNOMANCY premiered at Kampnagel Hamburg in 26 - 29th of March 2026.
CREDITS
Concept, choreography, objects, programming and light design: Gry Tingskog
Developed collaboratively with the team
Performed by: Lim Mui, Lu Chieregati, Gry Tingskog
Dramaturg: Anna Lublina
Sound design: Sam Hatchwell
Production by: K3 Tanzplan Hamburg
Pictures: Constantin Trommlitz and Öncü Hrant Gültekin
Video footage: Mathias Hollaender and Julian Bock
Trailer: Gry Tingskog