manτεία (meaning prophecy or divination) is a performance written and produced by MBow (Roberto Alonso Trillo and Peter Nelson) that examines how ancient practices of geomancy and divination relate to our desire to find meaning in AI. Apophenia is the human tendency to look for meaningful patterns in random patterns, from the shapes of clouds to the scratches in oracle bones, to the outputs of AI generators. As our cultures grapple with the rapid evolution of AI, manτεία returns us to the ancient quest to communicate with the transcendent, by looking for messages in clouds and melodies in noise. Premiered at Freespace West Kowloon on the 22nd of December 2024, manτεία used a unique approach to artistic collaboration, where artists produced sculptures, compositions and virtual worlds that sent signals to one another, linking them together into a chain of creation via a technical process known as "multimodal mapping". A giant mechanical sculpture created an irregular heartbeat that drives a sculpture made of smoke. A costume provided a digital portal into another world, and an AI trained on classical texts of Chinese and European mythology tried to find meaning in these heartfelt gestures from young contemporary artists.

Artistic Directors
Roberto Alonso Trillo
Peter A C Nelson

Artists
Taurin Barrera
Joseph Chan
Lazarus Chan Long Fung
Vvzela Kook
Samuel Swope
Davor Vincze
Karen Yu
Current.cam

Performers
Ching Chu
Keung Hoi-Ling (Appearance by kind permission of Unlock Dancing Plaza)

Organizer
MBow Limited

Producer
Jiafan Weng

Light Designer
Rachel Ip Chun-Lam

Sound Designer
Allison Fong Tsz-Ching

Stage Manager
Vivia Ho

Filming Venue Support: The Box, Freespace, West Kowloon Cultural District

拍攝場地提供：西九文化區自由空間大盒

This Project is financially supported by the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The content of this programme does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.