The Oracle: Ritual for the Future (for humans and non-humans)
dir. Victorine van Alphen
Artist: Victorine van Alphen
AI-researcher: Valentin Vogelmann
3D Artist: Jacco Kooistra
Production: Naomi van Dijck
Immersive Setup: Bram Snijders & IDlab
Performance: Esther Noyon
Music: Merlijn Nash
Sound: Giel van Geloven
Advisors: Berthe Spoelstra, Nienke Huitinga & Yannick Noomen
Technical Team: Katia Landman and Bram Buijs Made possible through the funding of Immerse // Interact Stimuleringsfonds and the NetherlandsFilmFestival fellowship.
In collaboration with IDlab “Poetic laboratory for digital technologies.”
Part of The Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam. | Special thanks to the Research Group Netherlands Filmacademy
Galeria Labirynt, 5 ks. J. Popiełuszki Street
19 and 20 September 2026, 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Running time: 60 minutes
Following the performances, the installation will be open to visitors as an interactive exhibition from 22 to 26 September, from 12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Can we collectively re-explore what it means to be a bodily being and imagine existence beyond it? The Oracle is a thought-provoking futuristic ritual about the evolving relationship between humans, bodies and AI. Blending personal story with an eerie systemic presence, participants delve into sensuality, death, agency and irreversible change
Starting from the personal story of two AI-enthousiast, and their archive material, the audience gains control but is slowly then drastically overtaken and immersed by nonhuman entities and images. The audience is invited into a 360-degree screen environment to navigate a choreography that is as much social as it is immersive – as much intimate as it is uncanny.
At its heart, The Oracle is not a spectacle of technology, but a reflection on it. Questioning the Western ideal of the autonomous rational human, it explores the self as fluid, (trans-)formed through systems larger than us: “Not ‘another AI show,’ but a ritual of collective experiencing: symbolic, embodied, and emotionally resonant.”
