What Choreography Does to AI: Bodies, Data, and the Politics of Legibility

Academic lecture exploring how choreography and artistic research challenge the ways AI systems perceive, classify, and interpret human movement.

How do AI systems interpret human movement, and who determines which forms of expression they can recognize? In her lecture “What Choreography Does to AI: Bodies, Data, and the Politics of Legibility,” Charlotte Triebus from MIREVI (Mixed Reality and Visualization) at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences examines the relationship between choreography, artificial intelligence, and the representation of human bodies.

Drawing on artistic research and experiments involving bodies, data, and code, the lecture explores how movement is translated into machine-readable information. It questions the assumptions and conventions behind AI-based classification, including whose movements become recognizable and which forms of knowledge are represented.

The event is part of the interdisciplinary lecture series “Aporien der Anwendung. Künstliche Intelligenzen in Geisteswissenschaften und Künsten” at Freie Universität Berlin. By connecting choreography with questions of agency, identity, and ethics, the session offers a critical perspective on how AI systems are designed, trained, and experienced.

Date: November 18, 2026
Time: 6:15–7:45 PM
Location: Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Theatre Studies, Lecture Hall, Grunewaldstraße 35, 12165 Berlin
Organizer: Institute of Theatre Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
Speaker: Charlotte Triebus, MIREVI (Mixed Reality and Visualization), Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences
Language: English
Audience: Researchers, students, artists, choreographers, AI practitioners, and anyone interested in the intersection of technology and the arts
Focus: Artificial intelligence, choreography, movement data, machine perception, representation, identity, and AI ethics
Lecture series: Aporien der Anwendung. Künstliche Intelligenzen in Geisteswissenschaften und Künsten
Accessibility: Step-free access via the rear entrance on Schmidt-Ott-Straße