AEF2026: Nicoline van Harskamp: Prosodia

This summer, Athens Epidaurus Festival's main city venue, the former industrial complex in Pireos 260, celebrates 20 years as one of the city’s most vital cultural meeting points. Under the artistic direction of Michail Marmarinos, this year’s landmark programme unfolds across two months of theatre, dance, music, performance, and multidisciplinary works, bringing together more than 50 events by acclaimed international artists alongside some of the most exciting voices from Greece’s contemporary scene. Pireos 260 will live through the Athenian summer as a dynamic space where emerging creators, established names, and curious audiences come together to explore what contemporary performance can be today. New collaborations, technology-driven works, and immersive experiences sit alongside bold theatrical productions, live music, and cutting-edge choreography.

Amongst these technology-driven works is Prosodia by visual artist Nicoline van Harskamp, a fascinating multi-layered performance that strips away the corporate myths surrounding artificial intelligence. The production features a "synthetic" AI performer named Prosodia alongside two flesh-and-blood actresses, a theatre director, and a traditional musician. Together, they attempt to stage The Epic of Siri, a vast ancient narrative from South India that rivals the Iliad in both scale and antiquity. As they try to synchronise, the characters reflect on the different technologies behind their art: "sung-narration," "acting," and "synthetic speech." A technical and artistic glitch arises when Prosodia cannot cry for the epic’s tragic ending, forcing the ensemble to look deep into her oldest programming for a solution.

Van Harskamp utilizes a custom digital stage tool that allows the live actresses to trigger and modulate the AI's vocal expressions, such as pitch, volume, and tempo, in real-time response to their own voices. What emerges is a captivating monologue unfolding as a live dialogue, requiring razor-sharp timing from the cast. Rather than simply aestheticizing new tech, the performance cleverly uses AI to trace the ancient, rhythmic patterns of human storytelling that connect classical epics to modern digital content.