Dr Diana Alina Serbanescu

Biography

I choreograph the interplay between human bodies and algorithmic systems—where performance becomes a site of resistance, imagination, and reconfiguration.

Interdisciplinary Background

With a dual background in computer science and performing arts, I foster an artistic and research practice at the intersection of contemporary performance art, AI, and robotics. I currently work as an academic researcher, lecturer, and transdisciplinary artist — choreographer, performer, and artistic director.

A Poetics of Hybrid Bodies

In my performance work, I create a new poetic language in which the expressive power of the body is amplified through hybridisation with the machine. At the same time, I position the performative body and its politics at the centre of technological discourse, establishing it as a strong signifier and a stubborn challenger of mainstream socio-technical norms and their inherent power structures. My practice-led research and performances design novel technological artefacts, rooted in radical acts of poetic embodiment. In this context, I envision Human-Computer Interactions as choreographies of embodied interactions or dramaturgical scores for humans and machines.

Research Leadership and Critical Technology Studies

Prior to my current position, I contributed to the grounding phase of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin, Germany. There, I led a research group (comprising four PhD students and two Master's students) that investigated the Criticality of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based systems and promoted practice-led research methods to address ethical and political challenges posed by AI technologies.

Founder of REPLICA Institute: A Laboratory for Embodied Experimentation

I serve as Artistic Director of REPLICA Institute for Creative Anticipation, which I co-founded in 2017. REPLICA operates as a performing arts platform and laboratory for embodied experimentation with new media and technologies, inviting creatives and scientists to collaborate on imagining alternative behavioural models for humans and machines, as well as prototyping new tools, cultures, and rituals.
As the artistic director of REPLICA, I explore feminist approaches to knowledge creation, the potential of poetic machines, and the ongoing relevance of cultural traditions in an era of artificial intelligence and digital colonisation.
My most recent projects with REPLICA include The Shape of Things to Come (2019–2020) and Dancing at the Edge of the World (2020–2022), funded by VolkswagenStiftung, and supported by the Weizenbaum Institute, Technical University Berlin, University of the Arts Berlin, Berlin Open Lab, and Hybrid Platform.

Recent Work

My latest dance piece, She Brings the Rain (2023) was commissioned by Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, and debuted at Tanz im August 2023.