iSlave
Alberto Bernal, Mar Gómez Glez and Pablo Ramos

 Thursday / 7 Mar / 19:30h
 60 min
 16 y 18€
MUN Theatre 

Multidisciplinary stage play that contrasts the playful element of electronic devices and the working conditions of those who produce them. Addiction and alienation. 

When in 2007 Steve Jobs presented the iPhone to the world, the cell phone went from being a tool to becoming the perfect toy. At this historic event, Jobs plays with his hand on the screen in front of the audience, enjoying all the possibilities of the device that would become the icon of the new era of digital entertainment. Only three years later, the working conditions at Foxconn, the company in charge of producing Apple products and other brands, came to light due to the numerous suicides of several of its workers.
 

iSlave is a work with and about new technologies. Far from making an instrumental and uncritical use of them, it contrasts the playful and addictive use in their daily praxis with their modes of production. While artificial intelligence software writes poems and composes songs, tens of thousands of underpaid workers -also called iSlaves- produce the hardware that sustains it: designed in California, assembled in China.

In iSlave, the scene is divided into two halves; in one, a dancer and two percussionists; in the other, the second dancer and two oboists. The percussion, with its repetitive and exhausting rhythm, reflects the industrial and alienating world; the oboe, much sweeter and melodic, represents the compulsive play and entertainment that devices end up becoming in their daily use.

ARTISTIC FILE

Musical direction and composition: Alberto Bernal
Dramaturgy: Mar Gómez Glez
Stage direction: Pablo Ramos
Management/Executive Production: Colectivo E7.2
Percussion 1: Carlota Cáceres
Percussion 2: Salva Tarazona
Oboe 1: Pilar Fontalba
Oboe 2: José Luis Urquieta
Performer/dancer 1: Martxel Rodríguez/ Led Silhouette
Performer/dancer 2: Jon López/ Led Silhouette
Lighting design: David Bernués
Videocreation: Alberto Bernal and Patxi Araujo

BIOGRAPHY

Alberto Bernal is a composer and sound artist of classical origin and varied influences, with works framed near the turning point between concert situations and other disciplines such as installation, performance or video art. 

His work is, above all, a search and deconstruction of the boundary between the aesthetic and the socio-political, as well as between the different traditional perceptual spheres (sound, image, word, everyday perception).

His work has been presented in various places in Europe, America and Asia, and has been recognized through several awards and grants: Darmstadt International Festival, Humboldt Foundation, DAAD/Fundación La Caixa, Ministry of Culture, Goethe Institute, Comunidad de Madrid, SWR Stuttgart, European Academy, Residencia de Estudiantes, Casa Velázquez, Matadero de Madrid or Fundación BBVA. 

He has been curator of several initiatives, among which the VANG cycle stands out. He is currently a professor at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid.

Coproduction Teatros del Canal and BBVA Foundation with the support of the Museo Universidad de Navarra. Project realized with the Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators 2022 of the BBVA Foundation.