[September 20 to october 22]

Un Cyber opera in 3 acts
For the creation of the cyber opera Terres Rares, Compagnie Eolie Songe took up a research residency at Atelier Arts Sciences over two years (2020-2022).
It will lead to a presentation at Hexagone Scène Nationale Arts Sciences in Meylan on 5 and 6 April 2022 as part of the Détours de Babel festival and in awareness modules for EXPERIMENTA 2022.

Terres Rares artistic project
Is a cyber opera lasting 90 minutes with a frontal approach. It comprises three acts with three human characters (man/baritone, woman/soprano and lover/tenor) and a robot.

The subject
A geological expedition ends in catastrophe in the Far North. Following a tragedy (Acts I and II), only a cyborg survives to question human nature (Acts III). Programmed in incremental learning, it delivers what its memory contains using a man/machine interface (EEG headphones worn by the actress/cyborg). The cyborg decides that the plant kingdom is the best of all worlds: a plant firework display as a final bouquet for an ode to the living. Investigators sent by the insurance company investigate to understand the ins and outs of the tragedy...

Thierry Poquet wishes to stage a tragi-comic reflection on:
- Human intelligence and artificial memory
- The on-going ecological evolution
- Otherness: the relations humans have with the living
… and where the cyborg offers the spectator a mirror to our humanity.

“In fact, what I really enjoy most in our history is that it is the robots that, surviving human failure for a time, give us - quite humbly - a reflection on our madness and hubris, on our outsize proclivities.” Thierry Poquet (director)

Terres rares will be a work for:
- A duo of musicians
- Two musicians
- Two off-stage voices
- Three actors/singers
- A cyborg Acrobat
- Two robotic entities
- Multiple immaterial forms

RESEARCH

A federative project
One of the strategic axes of the CEA is artificial intelligence. Incremental learning is one of the cornerstones of the cyber opera, it is the secret structure, the framework for basing this fable that confers a degree of imagination on the robot.
A cross-cutting theme: memory (electronic components, computer programming, functioning of the brain, its staging)

With innovative technologies:
- Develop with the new programming tools, the man/machine software based on an EEG headset (worn by the actress/cyborg)
- Create and optimize image quality (from 28 X 28 pixels to 224 X 224) through incremental learning model by networks of artificial neurones
- Develop an algorithm to design real-time images during the show generated by a man/machine interface (EEG headphones worn by the actress/cyborg)
- Create a smartphone application for Terres Rares with a conversational interface (deep learning, avatar)

This residency draws on the scientific approach (and its data) to build the poetic universe of Terres Rares (writing of the booklet, staging of the contents of the cyborg’s memory in real time, characters, costumes, script). Artists regularly meet with specialists (Leti, Clinatec, CHU, UGA/LPNC, UGA/MIAI/Philosophy and Ethics), on different subjects: bio-inspired memory in crickets, repaired man, environmental ethics, dream, how the brain works in memory, the materials of tomorrow for which energies? … these meetings are complemented by visits to laboratories (Leti/DSYS and DTBS, UGA/LPNC) that develop non-invasive technologies of body instrumentation and their applications (physiological sensors, emotion sensors, EEG), development of sensors to make an image, BabyLab, etc., in order to enhance thinking.

Une coproduction Eolie Songe / Hoomano / ensemble LINKS
With the participation of l’Hexagone Scène Nationale Arts Sciences and Atelier Arts Sciences de Meylan, the CEA - Grenoble (LETI) and the LPNC (Université Grenoble Alpes) et du laboratoire CRIStAL (Lille University) - The MIAI Grenoble institute