Techno-Zombies (working title)
Techno-Zombies is a performance that operates at the threshold between realities — where flesh meets code, and the visible is haunted by the spectral. Drawing from the aesthetics of science fiction, the immersive logic of video games, and post-human discourses, the piece opens up a space of instability: a zone where perception fractures, presence multiplies, and reality teeters on the edge of collapse.
We begin with the premise that a single space can contain multiple layers of existence. Like moving through portals or game levels, we shift from the everyday to the supernatural, from flesh to algorithm. This sensory confusion — where dream and wakefulness, avatar and subject, blur into one — gives rise to a contemporary epic: stories crafted in an attempt to make sense of isolation, digital exhaustion, the collapse of memory, and the breakdown of the body.
A liminal zone where affect becomes ambiguous and identity dissolves into recursive loops. Bodies blur into mirages, while emotions are rendered into data streams, absorbed by algorithms.
Reality becomes porous — haunted by glitches, ghosts, and synthetic echoes. What is human is no longer stable; what is digital is no longer neutral. In this shifting terrain, presence becomes performance, memory becomes code, and intimacy is reprogrammed. Techno-Zombies invites us to inhabit this threshold — not to escape, but to feel what it means to be fractured, connected, and haunted in the age of endless simulation.
In this universe, characters do not explain themselves, nor do they reveal who they are. They are opaque, flickering figures, crossed by invisible forces. They are not full agents, but rather surfaces — interfaces — onto which we project our desires, our fears, our failures. They move in loops, like techno-zombies caught between channels, between timelines, between overlapping realities. They inhabit an undefined space.
A digital black hole into which reality is drawn.
Continuing their ongoing reflection on technology and human interaction, and following previous works such as Family Romance or the Augmented Reality, Chatroom, and The Centre of the World, Ana Borralho & João Galante revisit several characters born in the universe of The Centre of the World (a film/VR performance premiered in 2024) to create a new hybrid stage piece blending theatre, dance, and video.
Inspired by the world of video games and video fragments collected from social media platforms such as TikTok, Techno-Zombies dives into the extreme isolation of its virtual inhabitants — beings lost in a psychic labyrinth, desperately trying to feel real.
The choreographic movement in the piece will be strongly inspired by the movements of NPC* characters from electronic games.
The video, a central element of the scenography, simultaneously projects the external environment and the piece’s psychic landscape. Created using special effects and 3D modeling tools, the video functions as a portal, mirror, and delirium. Its visual logics of repetition, glitch, and collapse reflect the state of the bodies on stage — trapped in a present without progression.
*NPC (Non-Playable Character) – In electronic games, a non-playable character is one that is not controlled by a player, typically exhibiting a very specific, often repetitive or suspended type of movement.
Techno-Zombies is an immersive experience about collapsing bodies, fractured identities, and overlapping realities. A theatre of digital ghosts, where language fails, time stagnates, and the future has already happened — on repeat.
Excerpt from The Centre of the World by Ana Borralho & João Galante, 2024 — inspiration for Techno-Zombies.
To explore the perception of reality through technology and live performance. To reflect on the contradictions of the human condition and the interaction between technology, identity, and existence. To investigate new ways of storytelling through the fusion of theatre/dance and digital forms.
The piece will be developed through theatrical and somatic research residencies, in collaboration with performers, dancers, and multimedia artists. Experimentation with interactive social media devices will be an essential part of the process, exploring the relationship between the physical body and digital space. The dramaturgy will be inspired by videos and testimonies about human relationships with technology, collected from social networks and other digital platforms, composing a mosaic of movements that resonate within the stage space.
The project will be developed over approximately six months, culminating in a season of performances at Teatro das Figuras (Faro), Cineteatro Louletano (Loulé), Centro Cultural de Lagos (to be confirmed), with the possibility of national and international touring, with contacts already underway.
Techno-Zombies proposes a sensory and existential experience where theatre merges with dance, video, and technological devices to create a kind of collective hallucination. There are no clear answers—only echoes, loops, fragments—signs of a world in constant mutation.
By inhabiting the margins between human and machine, between body and avatar, the piece places the spectator before a fragmented mirror of the digital age. In a time of hyper-connection and extreme solitude, where gestures become automatic and intimacy empties into likes and filters, Techno-Zombies questions what remains of presence, touch, and the self.
Between collapse and reinvention, between absence and excess, this creation invites us to inhabit an unstable territory — a symbolic fiction of the present, where everything may be simulation. And at its center, a question persists as a constant background noise: If we can no longer distinguish memory from simulation, how do we tell our story? And if everything is interface, what does it still mean to be here?
ARTISTIC AND TECHNICAL TEAM
The team will be composed of interdisciplinary artists, including:
Dancers/Actors Ana de Oliveira e Silva, Ana Freitas, Maria Antunes, Francisco Rolo, Lewis Seivwright. Concept, Artistic Direction, Sound and Video Design, Space Ana Borralho & João Galante Choreographic Support Maria Antunes Light Design Joana Mário Original Soundtrack Coolgate aka João Galante Costumes To be confirmed Digital Video Effects To be confirmed Video Assistance To be confirmed Dramaturgical Support Fernando Ribeiro Artistic Assistance (creation residency) Tiago Gandra
Production: casaBranca
Co-production: Teatro das Figuras, Cineteatro Louletano, Câmara Municipal de Lagos Co-production Residency O Espaço do Tempo Support for Artistic Creation OPART, E.P.E./Estúdios Victor Córdon Support O Rumo do Fumo
Duration: Approximately 80 minutes.
casaBranca is an organization funded by the Government of Portugal / Secretary of State for Culture – Directorate-General for the Arts (DG Artes).
Tour manager - Artists Ana Borralho anaegalante@me.com & João Galante coolgate@riseup.net
Biographical Note
Ana Borralho & João Galante met while studying Visual Arts at AR.CO. As actors/co-creators, they worked regularly with the theatre group OLHO. Since 2002, they have collaborated as a duo, with notable works including Mistermissmissmister (2002), I Love You (2003), No Body Never Mind, 001 (2004), No Body Never Mind, 002 (2005), No Body Never Mind, 003 (2006), sexyMF (2007), I put a spell on you (2007/2008), Meatphysics (2008), Untitled, Still Life (2009), Meeting Room (2009), Gritos de Artistas (2010), World of Interiors (2010), Atlas (2011), Linha do Horizonte (2012), Purgatório (2013), Aqui Estamos Nós (2014), Só há uma vida e nela quero ter tempo para construir-me e destruir-me (2015), Gatilho da Felicidade (2017), Romance Familiar ou a realidade aumentada (2019), Tempo para Refletir (2021), Chatroom (2023), Louise Michel (2023), O Centro do Mundo (2024).
Together with Mónica Samões, they developed the project No Jogo do Desejo ou o Choque Frontal (workshops/labs for young audiences, 2008), the documentary video Eu Não Tu (2009), and the youth performance A Linha ou O Deserto já não é uma casa vazia (2009).
In 2022, they published Close-Up through the publisher Orfeu Negro — a milestone celebrating 20 years of their collaboration.
Since 2004, their work has been presented at international festivals in Portugal, France, Spain, Switzerland, Scotland, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Germany, Finland, Estonia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Greece, among others.
They are founding members of the non-musicians’ band Jimmie Durham and of the casaBranca Association. They are also the artistic directors of Festival Verão Azul, a transdisciplinary arts festival in the Algarve.