Marina Orlova 

I’m a Robot and I need Therapy, performance

An experimental performance featuring a real-time therapy session for a "mentally unstable AI," offering a critical and ironic perspective on society's approach to empathy, technology, and mental health. Drawing from the artist experiences as a neurodivergent individual and psychiatric survivor, the piece blends theatre, dance, storytelling, and dark comedy. It explores neurodiversity and responsible AI through various characters, addressing agency, subjectivity, and power dynamics between humans and AI, paralleling issues in psychiatry. The AI is represented by a custom-engineered chatbot designed for this project.

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​Bio

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Marina Orlova is an independent choreographer and performer based in Amsterdam and Moscow. With a background in sociology and cultural studies, she has been creating dance since 2012 and graduated from SNDO at the Amsterdam Academy of Theatre and Dance in 2021. Marina's work, presented in Russia, Germany, and the Netherlands, explores themes of mental health, tech ethics, and migration, often through a lens of tragicomedy and absurdism. Since 2020, she has focused on responsible AI, developing political chatbot-performers like “But I’m just a Text” and “too much in the head.”

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Credits

Concept, text, directing, performance: Marina Orlova 

Co-directing: Nazar Rakhmanov 

Creative AI engineering: Artem Konevskikh 

Dramaturgical advise: Amelie Haller, Burkhard Körner 

Sound design: Arieh Chrem 

Video design, light design: Nazar Rakhmanov 

Outside eye: Tiana Hemlock-Yensen 

Creative process facilitation: Burkhard Körner 

Production: Marina Orlova 

Supported by: IDlab (AHK), Veem House for Performance AFK, Creative Industries NL, Wilhelmina E. Jansen Fonds, Amarte fonds 

Special thanks to: Raoni Saleh, Yves Regenass, Gala Faraus, Liza Spivakovskaya, Willem Weemhoff, Erik Lint, Jos Daamen, Asya Deinekina

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