Human VPN is a future dance performance about virtual, physical and political border crossing and the state of dissociation from political reality where absence is the new presence. The artist has been a guest at the L.I.K. – Laboratory for Inclusive Culture studio for three weeks since early March 2025.
About the Residence
The project intersects the topics of border politics and technology: centralized digital border control systems, VPN tools, virtual expression as political action. VPN is a tool to misrepresent digital location. Dissociation is a coping mechanism of emotional detachment from reality. In our information society reality and virtuality blend. Social media gives an illusion of witnessing catastrophic events elsewhere and reactions of others, it misrepresents the location of migrants and displaced people. Movement across territories seems virtual as web surfing, physical presence or absence become convoluted. Are we more present when doom scrolling or avoiding the news, protesting cruel regimes in a free country or hitting “like” to photos of local protesters? Human VPN is a way of mismatching the virtual and physical presence of one’s body or mind to escape political reality. During the research phase together with collaborator Asya Deinekina, Marina Orlova will focus on investigating how technology can be translated into the body and exploring performative aspects of dissociated state within political, digital, and psychological spaces as a way of hacking borders – literal and metaphorical.
The artistic residency is supported by the Culture Moves Europe mobility grant.
Presentation
WHY DO ROBOTS NEED THERAPY?
A lecture-performance by Marina Orlova
March 25, 2025 | 7:00 PM | Un-Label Studio, Hosterstraße 1-5, Cologne
Join us on March 25, 2025, at 7 PM at the Un-Label Studio in Cologne for the lecture-performance “Why Do Robots Need Therapy?” by Marina Orlova, presented in collaboration with KISD – TH Köln and Un-Label. In this event, Marina will present fragments of her performance “I’m a Robot and I need Therapy”, including a therapy session with a mentally unstable/neurodivergent AI patient and an open focus group.
This lecture is based on research by EIAI Institute (Institute for Emotional Integrity of Artificial Intelligence) – a project that investigates the intersection of technology ethics, data feminism and anti-psychiatry movement.
The performance takes place in English spoken language.
Marina Orlova is currently in artistic residence at L.I.K – Labor for Inclusive Culture by Un-Label.
Artists
Marina Orlova
Marina Orlova is an independent dance/theatre maker and tech dramaturg. After receiving education in sociology in Moscow (‘09), Marina has been active as a self-taught dance artist and later moved to Amsterdam to study at SNDO at the Amsterdam Academy of Theatre and Dance (‘21). She presented her works at Frascati Theater, Veem House, Flam Festival Amsterdam, Next Level Festival. Since 2020 she has been working with AI, taking the role of mediator between AI engineering logic and theatre apparatus and creating anti-disciplinary performances on the crossover of mental health, AI ethics and Data feminism. Her other topics are migration and border politics.
Asya Deinekina
Asya Deinekina is an Amsterdam-based performer and choreographer. She graduated from SNDO department of choreography in 2023. Her artistic interests lie in the field of language and movement, their intersection and tension. Her performative work is rooted in strength and awareness in movement, physical theatre skills and her vocal research. She sees herself as a collective-oriented artist who searches for her way through the prevalence of individualism in the performance art.
About the residence programme by Un-Label
Un-Label’s artist residencies provide artists with disabilities with the opportunity to realise their own creative projects while receiving targeted support. The Labor für inklusive Kultur (L.I.K.) in Cologne serves as a central space where artists with disabilities can connect, collaborate, and work in an inclusive environment. In addition to financial, personnel, and logistical support, the residencies focus on interdisciplinary and intersectional collaboration. Un-Label also partners with cultural networks to establish accessibility and long-term support for artists with disabilities within the arts sector.
