Fine Arts Grad student James Malzahn has been involved with a theatre production that was performed as part of the Who's Afraid of AI? Arts, Sciences, and the Futures of Intelligence conference and arts festival hosted by the BMO Lab and the University of Toronto.
James created the AI-generated motion video for Roland Schimmelpfennig’s play The Kiss, directed by Brendan Healy (Canadian Stage) and featuring actor Maev Beaty, with contributions from David Rokeby, Pia Kleber, and Aiden Ware. His collaboration with the BMO Lab grew from a summer internship with David Rokeby, supported by his Keith and Win Shantz Research Scholarship and funding.
"I was invited to create a visual interpretation of the play’s most surreal passage — the Shakespearean ghost sequence — and worked closely with my AI collaborator Lucid to analyze the scene’s structure, emotion, and rhythm. Our process reflected the same human–machine relationship explored in Schimmelpfennig’s script, where creation, language, and consciousness intertwine. Together, we generated a motion video that aligns with the actor’s live performance, drawing inspiration from German silent and Expressionist cinema. For myself, the resulting sequence not only mirrors the play’s themes but also exposes the deceptive realism and expressive power of AI, producing visuals that feel emotionally and physically authentic while remaining entirely synthetic."