The Grid: Exposure

Last summer in Berlin, in an old swimming pool that had been converted into a theater, GOLEM received its world premiere. The immersive project that fuses dance, technology and music is a collaboration between San Francisco-based synthesizer expert and vocalist Arushi Jain and director and choreographer Carly Lave. The duo met at university as undergraduates and used their respective skills to blur the lines between human and machine, posing questions that explore the place of body and gender in a rapidly-evolving world.

Arushi Jain grew up in Delhi and studied Hindustani classical music at the Prayag Sangeet Samiti School and the Ravi Shankar Institute via the Mozart Choir of India. Later, she relocated to the USA to study Computer Science at Stanford University, where she developed an interest in computer-generated sounds and modular synthesis. It was this background - a deep and developed expertise in traditional and modern techniques - that led to her acclaimed debut album "With & Without", released last fall under the ose | ओस moniker. The album, released on Jain's own GHUNGHRU imprint, was described by Jain as "a strange twisted 21st century interpretation of an ancient artistic practice," and interprets the ragas she grew up singing in a completely new way, using modular synthesis as well as vocals.

American choreographer and dancer Carly Lave moved to Berlin in 2018 as a Fulbright Fellow to develop dance with motion capture technology and virtual reality. Most recently and in continuation of the work on GOLEM, she has partnered with the Goethe Institute to develop an international dance workshop series called "Golem Labor", using new technology to shine a spotlight on dance's innate connection with humanity.

GOLEM is a collaboration between Arushi Jain, Carly Lave, gamelab.berlin, University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern | Virtual Design and Will Hamilton. Here the team's expertise is combined, taking the idea of the golem from Jewish folklore - a creature formed of clay that was created to assist humanity that ended up turning against its creators - and giving it a decidedly modern twist. With sound design from Jain and a score the duo worked on together, the performance uses virtual reality headsets and motion-capture sensors to show how humans and machines can interact - and dance - together seamlessly. As the role of technology in our lives continues to change in an era where so many of us are locked away from physical interaction, GOLEM's questions have become even more vital and pressing.

Editorial: John Twells