Deus Ex Machina Doctrina
Performance & Installation by
Christopher Knowlton
Friday December 12, 2025
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Doors open for interactive installation at 6:45 pm
Performance at 7:30pm
Estimated Duration: 2 hours
Cash Bar
Deus Ex Machina Doctrina is an interactive performance and installation that explores the deification of new technologies, the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for dance, and the extractive forces underpinning generative AI.
Referencing Latin phrases for “god from machine” (deus ex machina) and "machine learning” (machina doctrina), the work probes the history of technology worship, religion as a technology, and the roles that both technology and religion play in colonization and imperialism.
Featuring AI-generated video, text, music, choreography, and immersive projections, a seer and his devoted acolytes satirize techno-worship by exploding the empty promises of technology into a farcically sanctimonious interactive performance experience.
Content Warning: Mature Themes: The content explores mature or challenging themes.
Tickets
Tickets are $15 and available through Hairpin Arts Center.
About the Artist
Christopher Knowlton is a queer transdisciplinary movement artist and research scientist who uses emerging technologies to create augmented performance work. Having trained in contemporary dance and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Chris moved to Chicago to complete his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Inspired by science, nature, play, improvisation and human-centered approaches to design, he has produced many solo and collaborative dance works featured locally and internationally, spanning dance, film, new media, puppetry and storytelling. Chris was a Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2020 Lab Artist, a 2020 Chicago DCASE grant recipient, a 2022 Ragdale in Schools Fellow, a 2023 Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio Resident Artist, a Winter 2023 Banff Centre Dance Artist in Residence, a 2024 Supported Residency at WOWArtSci in Taos, NM, and a 2024 Artist in Residence at High Concept Labs in Chicago. Chris is also a biomechanical research scientist and manages the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Rush University Medical Center.
For more information, visit chrisknowltondance.com
Access Services
Hairpin Arts Center is fully ADA accessible. The performance will include spoken English text with closed captions and live ASL interpretation.
For any other questions or requests regarding accessibility, please contact Angee Lennard, HCL’s Accessibility Coordinator, at angee@highconceptlabs.org or 312-374-1117.
This project is partially supported by an Individual Artists Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Deus Ex Machina Doctrina is presented with support from High Concept Labs and Hairpin Arts Center.