Ludmilla Mercier

Photo – Ella Josephine Campbell

Algorithms do dream

Where are the boundaries between man and machine, between human sensibility and synthetic intelligence, between body and code? They are explored here with music, technology, theatre and dance.

Where does the human end and the machine begin? «Algorithms do dream» explores the shifting boundaries and gives rise to something new – complex, hybrid and very lively.

It’s not really the future, not really the past. It’s a loop, the logic bends. There is no performance for us, we are let in. We are not just watching – we are being watched.

It is a choreography of dissolution: of roles, of hierarchies, of clear distinctions. A new kind of presence begins to take shape between man and machine. Meaning disappears and reassembles itself.

«Algorithms do dream» invites us into a system in which the boundaries of the body, identity and creation as a whole are constantly being reprogrammed – ‘looping, morphing and dreaming’.

An audiovisual performance for sound, light and movement.

Ludmilla Mercier, Artistic Director / Concept / Scenography
Arda Yurdusev, Composition / Concept
Romane Ruggiero, Choreography / Dance
Mila Lyutskanova, Rahel Jenny Egger, Acting
Antoine Françoise, Keyboards
Brian Archinal, Bridget Bourne, Paulo Amendoeira, Percussion
Mireia Pellisa Martín, assistant director
Giovanni Dinello, lighting design / technical direction
Clara Benador, dramaturgical assistant
Jacopo Scarpis, sound direction
Emma Madita Mösch, costumes
Abhilash Nayak, research coordination (AI Robotics Research Lab)

PREMIERE: Commissioned by MUSIKFESTIVAL BERN – 05.09.2025

SPELL Kollektiv UNRUHE presents

The music-theatrical concert installation Spell (WP) transforms the venue into a multidimensional and synesthetic space where incantations, rituals, and magic vividly confront, merge, and collide with one another.

The range of this bizarre space spans from playful illusion to manipulative narration. Spell opens up an equally immersive and critical journey through the nature of magic.

The members of the young Kollektiv UNRUHE compose, stage, and perform collectively. Their motto: “Collaboration is the future, and it is here to stay.” At the center of their work is a non-hierarchical, democratic form of artistic collaboration and collective creation.

Collective composition for ensemble in space. Commissioned by Klangwerkstatt Berlin.

12.11.2025 – Kunstquartier Bethanien, Studio 1

Photo – André Fischer / Klangwerkstatt Berlin

Photo – Raphaël Nebbula

INUK

Commande du Festival Orpheus et Lauréates du 1er prix du Concours Osez ! 2025, Ludmilla Mercier et le Quatuor MOMO présentent INUK.

Cette pièce à la croisée du théâtre musical et du récital classique raconte des fragments de vie :

Une grand-mère russe qui refuse de jouer la Balalaïka,
Une enfance andalouse sous le poids du regard des autres,
Un départ brutal de Mayotte vers Paris,
Une cheﬀe qui n’a plus envie de se justifier.

Sur scène, les musiciennes partagent leurs histoires, leurs sons, leurs souvenirs. Le quatuor n’est plus seulement une entité, on peut entendre l’individualité derrière chaque instrument.

Et maintenant que vous savez… Entendez-vous toujours la même musique ?

Une co-production du Quatuor MOMO et de Ludmilla Mercier pour quatuor à cordes, électronique, lumières et projections.

Avec la musique du Quatuor n°5 de Dmitri Chostakovitch.

Momo String Quartet* :
Maria Kalugina, violon
Judith Baubérot, violon
Sarah Ruiz Pulido, alto
Hortense Airault, violoncelle

Ludmilla Mercier*, composition, mise en scène, création
Momo String Quartet*, creation, performance
Erwin Fonseca Arande | Lighting

Commande du Festival Orpheus.

PREMIERE: festival Orpheus, Ciné-Rex Adelboden – 13.09.2025

Performed at Festival Ponticello Geneva – 12.10.2025

Photo – Lukas Kleitsch

LAVOMATIK

neukoellneroper.de/performance/lavomatik

Washing is a central ritual of the Anthropocene. It represents cleansing, renewal, and healing. The washing machine is an achievement of the Industrial Revolution. Rhythm, repetition, and form. The wash cycle is a tried-and-true ritual, an interlocking choreography between humans and machines.

“Lavomatic” examines the absurdity of our lives from inside a washing machine drum. Following an extensive research period involving dismantled washing machines, field trips to laundromats, and an examination of sexist 1970s commercials, the musical theater production emerged as an intricate web of sound research on washing machine drums and a polyphonic text collage.

This production does not seek to answer questions, but rather to provide impetus from the washing machine biotope. What can a medieval legend about washerwomen (“Les Lavandières de nuit”) tell us about patriarchal structures of oppression? What is the strange concept of purity that still exists in today’s detergent advertising? Aren’t the cycles of a washing machine just the molded parts of our lives? Of course, it also asks the burning question: What does a washing machine actually feel?

CONCEPT, COMPOSITION, TEXT, DIRECTION
Ludmilla Mercier, Jakob Böttcher

WITH
Trixi Strobel | Performance
Julien Mégroz | Percussion, Performance
Lis Marti | Keyboard, Performance
HYPER DUO (Julien Mégroz & Gilles Grimaitre) | Creative Collaboration
Erwin Fonseca Arande | Lighting
Pablo Mena Escudero | Stage prop construction
Mariona Urgell Baiori, Ayfer Ezgi Karataş | Headpiece production

A production by BAM! – Berlin Festival for Contemporary Music Theater 2025. With the kind support of Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council, and Impuls Neue Musik.

PREMIERE: BAM! Festival Berlin – 20.11.2025 at the Neuköllner Oper Berlin

CH PREMIERE: Sonic Boom – 14.04.2026 at Gare du Nord Basel

APRÈS LA GLACE

Composers Ludmilla Mercier and Ulysse Loup and glaciologist Janosch Beer take us on a fictional journey to the icy world of Greenland.

Greenland has come under particular scrutiny in recent years due to climate change. The glaciers - as huge as they still are today - are gradually retreating, which has enormous consequences for the planet. Where will this lead?

Ulysse Loup and Ludmilla Mercier have been studying this unique world for a long time. For our event, they are bringing new images and sounds from Greenland, which they will process musically in the concert. The focus is on the breaking off of large ice masses, the so-called "calving", which is unusually loud and can trigger powerful tsunamis.

Janosch Beer is a glaciologist. He studies and works at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) at ETH Zurich. He specializes in the movement and collapse of alpine glaciers, but draws parallels with those in Greenland.

« Some time ago, we had this slightly crazy idea to sail by boat from Akeyuri Island to Nuuk, Greenland. A month aboard a 12-meter boat, exploring glaciers and recording sounds, images, to create « APRÈS LA GLACE » a piece for trio and performance together with the glaciologist @j_p_beer . »

Premiere at the Schlachthaus Theater for the Musikfestival Bern: Donnerstag 5.9., 12.30 Uhr Schlachthaus Theater, Saal ( More info)

Ludmilla Mercier (*1997), Ulysse Loup (*1997): «Après la glace» (2024, UA)

Ludmilla Mercier, Performance - direction
Ulysse Loup, Bass - composition
Daniel Hernandez, Klavier
Michael Cina, Schlagzeug
Janosch Beer, wissenschaftlicher
Beitrag Thomas Meyer, Moderation

STEADY STATE by Alexander Schubert

By Alexander Schubert

Premiered by Zubin Kanga together with Ludmilla Mercier and Oscar Corpo

Costumes by Felina Levits , Video by Alexander Trattler, Neuro-Programming Serafeim Perdikis.

National concert Hall, Dublin.

“Steady State” is a performative piece that integrates neuroscience and technology to create a feedback loop between the performer’s brain activity and computer generated stimuli. Using an EEG cap, the performer’s dominant brain frequencies are measured as they interact with strobing video projections. The performer’s gaze and brain activity influence the visuals, creating a continuous loop. The piece blurs the lines between installation and performance, with the performer turning into a transhuman processing unit revolving around the body, computation, hallucination, and transcendence.

Commissioned and created as part of Cyborg Soloists, a UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship project, based at Royal Holloway, University of London. Brain sensors by ANT Neuro.

Photos by @imagery.by.ro

TALK

Contemporary theatre piece for performers, actors, jazz quartet and live projections

« BELIEVE ME, I’VE TRIED, YOU KNOW? AND THEN THE STUDIO’S LIKE, “YOU SIGNED A CONTRACT.” BLAH, BLAH, BLAH... “LOOK” ! YOU SIGNED HERE AND HERE, YOU HAVE TO TALK EVERY DAY. AND I’M LIKE, “ALL RIGHT. BUT IT’S A LOT OF PRESSURE, BECAUSE IF I DON’T KEEP TALKING, THEN THE CONVERSATION JUST STOPS AND THE SHOW STOPS. SEE WHAT I MEAN? »

Meet Rahel, a young actress determined to make her voice resonate in a world that often overlooks aspiring talents. Bernat, the technician of a talk show, grapples with the delicate balance between his political convictions and the demands of the commercial TV realm. Then there's Andrea, the enigmatic talk-show host who opts for silence over words. This is how we meet them on stage. But who are these individuals concealed behind their characters mask?

As their stories unfold, they weave together in both absurd and magical ways, unraveling a narrative that exposes our collective perceptions of reality, celebrity, love, and the intricate workings of the entertainment industry. What mysteries lie beneath our understanding of reality, and to what extent is our world an artifice? These questions invite us to ponder the authenticity of our existence and the layers that veil the truth behind the spectacle of life.

Rahel Egger, CH - Actress
Andrea Zamengo, IT- Performer
Bernat Pont, CAT - Performer
Mireia Pellisa Martín, CAT - Saxophonist
Robin Rindlisbacher, CH - Pianist
Pierre Dayer, CH - Percussionist
Ulysse Loup, FR - Bassist
Matthias Müller, CH - Sound artist/Performer
Samuel Gfeller, CH - Sound engineer/Technician
Arda Yurdusev, TR - Technical Support
Ludmilla Mercier, CH - director/writer

External Eye:
Leo Dick, René-Claude Emery, Simon Steen Andersen

BUREAU FÜR/POUR NONSENSE

Contemporary theatre piece for 2 performers, office equipment and projections

Nonsense is the madman's last piece of freedom - permission to do something that makes no sense, and therefore has no business in the office. The duo sees Nonsens as an invitation to draw surrealist images that critically highlight the biotope that is the office, but also the administrative apparatus it represents and the linguistic absurdities that lurk in the mists of the office.

"Bureau" and "non-sens" - two terms that, at first glance, couldn't be more different, yet are inseparable in their essence: a taste for the absurd. In "Bureau für/pour Nonsens", Ludmilla Mercier and Jakob Böttcher examine the all-too-often unquestioned biotope of the office as a capitalist construct, a device that no one is capable of piercing, not even those who create it. The duo examine the stereotypical sonic objects of the office and put them to the test by dissociating them from their sonic origins. This semantic decoupling forms the sonified bridge to nonsense.

"Bureau für/pour Nonsens" constructs surrealist semantic approaches in sound, highlights the topos of the absurd in text and sound, and plays with the components of absurdity in French and German language. The dystopia of the future is neither the autonomous machine seizing world domination, nor the last AI to escape human control: it's the office.

Against this thematic backdrop, the piece unfolds associatively and without concrete action, using the biotope of the office as a sonic body; it constructs surrealist approaches to nonsense and interprets them sonically and multimedia; it highlights the topos of the absurd in different texts and plays in particular with the absurd, but also sonic, components of language, with reference to French and German. Thanks to its multilingualism, the play is intended to be accessible and comprehensible, despite the heaviness of the text, to people who speak only German or only French.

The piece is a playful study of the office biotope from an acoustic, visual, theatrical and semantic point of view. It takes a critical look at the organizational obstacles and social injustices of everyday life, as well as the bureaucratic absurdities of our times and of our artistic work, particularly across borders. The terms "office" and "nonsense" are thus opposed as antipodes: the office as a superior ordering body, as administration, as archives and above all as the workplace of capitalism; nonsense, on the other hand, as an invitation to madness, chaos and childish play.

Jakob Böttcher, DE - composer and performer
Ludmilla Mercier, CH - composer and performer

LUX ÆTERNA

Music theatre piece for 2 performers, prepared piano, soundtrack, MIDI devices and lights and objects

A dead man comes back to life, a piano that serves as his coffin, familiar instruments suddenly sound different and seemingly real actions turn out to be illusions. In this 2023 version of the Requiem Mass things are no longer what they seem to be.

Inspired by real and fictional elements from cinema, 60’s tv-shows and catholic rituals the show moves freely between the solemn and the light-hearted scenery.

Lux Æterna is inspired both by the Requiem Mass's musical highlights and by visual elements from paintings and religious events. The show recreates several "visual tableaux" on stage to bring these artistic references to life.

To reinforce the visual impact, some cinematic tricks were prepared, such as a "tear-tube device". This idea is directly inspired by the legend of the 20th-century "Madonna di Civitavecchia".

Andrea Zamengo, IT - composer and performer
Ludmilla Mercier, CH - composer and performer

More information about LUX ÆTERNA TOUR

TO BUILD A DECONSTRUCTION

Music theatre piece for 2 performers, sonic stands, oud and flute

All is about realities...

It's a story between two completely opposed musicians. Their countries, their cultures, their musical approaches, their dreams and their favorite dishes...

In a world that you cannot predict its future, how can a little Swiss artist manage to meet in real this reality? How can a Syrian artist integrate his past in his creations?

How can they judge their lives? How can they be sure that what they live is a reality and not an unreality?

To build a deconstruction celebrates differences, and tries to highlight them through the examination of lives, sounds, images and dreams...

Ludmilla Mercier, CH - performer and dramaturg
Hekmat Homsi, - performer and composer

ORAL CAVITY

Stative performance for sensors, lights et 3 performeurs.

David Maydell, DE - performer
Lara Alarcón, ARG - Performer
Aine E Nakamura, JPN - performer

SCH*

SCH* White noise is a piece created and performed for a specific location: the former cardboard factory in Trossingen. The performance took place on May 24, 2022 as part of the D-Bü Wettbewerb final.

"Sch* as white noise, Sch* as censorship or Sch* as the silence that follows chaos."

"Noise is movement between spaces. It escapes from airplane turbines that cross continents. It sizzles in old televisions and radios in search of new channels. Waterfalls and forests rustle like butterfly wings. Noise is the only sonic constant. It's musical material without pitch.

With SCH* [white noise], the ensemble Inter.Rupture explores a new hybrid form of musical performance on a new instrumentarium, musical spatial installation and performance. By playing with everyday objects, the ensemble aims to critically question the artificiality of the classical concert situation, without completely abandoning it. By moving freely around the space, the audience can individually explore the nuances of noise in space, creating their own non-reproducible sound piece. The six performers* play on sound and everyday objects, classical instruments, voices and electronics."

with collective luft

Ludmilla Mercier - Komposition, künstlerische Leitung, Flöte, Handtrockner
Jakob Böttcher - Idee, Komposition, Luftpumpe, Tonmeister
David von Maydell - Dramaturgie, Text, Tape
Lara Bäucker - Stimme, Flöte, Bohrmaschine
Vinh Tran - Gitarre, Tape, Tonmeister, Gottesdiener
Nathalie Nikonova - Stimme, Agogô, lebendiges Radio
Bernat Pont - Technik

POURQUOI VIOLETTE EST DEVENUE SORCIÈRE?

Performative music theatre piece for 4 performers and projections

Directed and performed by 4 young creators, the piece mixes reality and fiction, humor, sarcasm, innocence and seriousness, theatrical illusions and feminist activism.

It includes pieces by Charlotte Torres and Yesid Fonseca, as well as creations by the collective. In the course of the piece, the performers examine the inequalities between men and women in the past and present. The use of archives, sounds and images brings the show an interactive and modern aspect that reinforces its originality.

collective Delay-diz - performance and creations

LA HISTÒRIA D'AMOR

Musical "tableau vivant" for percussion, electric pedals, electric bass, tubes and boxes

"No hi havia a València dos amants com nosaltres.
Feroçment ens amàvem des del matí a la nit.
Tot ho recorde mentre vas estenent la roba.
Han passat anys, molts anys; han passat moltes coses."

"In Valencia, there were no lovers like us.
Fiercely, we loved each other from morning to night.
I remember it all as you unfold your clothes.
Years have passed, many years; many things have happened."

Vicent Andrés Estellés

Ulysse Loup, CH - performer and bass
Núria Carbó Vives, ES - performer, percussions and singer
Loïc Baillod, CH - pedal and effects
Lumdilla Mercier, CH - director and composer

UMA MÃO LAVA A OUTRA

For two performers, video, electronics and percussions.

How do we construct reality? And what role does sound play in this process? The piece plays with images projected on musical instruments. Live video recordings are reversed, creating a cyclical illusion of time and reality. Acoustic and electronic sounds are intertwined to create an experimental sonic world.

Ludmilla Mercier, CH - performer and composer
Cristiano Rios, PRT - performer and composer