Facilitator: Louise Coetzer

Dark Room Contemporary

Louise Coetzer is an acclaimed multidisciplinary performance artist, researcher, and filmmaker. Her practice deconstructs modern identity, attention economies, and technological systems through a distinct cinematic lens. Treating live digital spaces and internet infrastructure as active creative collaborators, her work aggressively tests the boundaries between physical presence and online reality, confronting the ways in which human visibility and contemporary connection are shaped by the digital age.

Parallel to this focus on technology is Cape Town’s premier project-based company, Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre. Founded by choreographer Louise Coetzer and visual storyteller Oscar O’Ryan, the pioneering South African company is dedicated to reimagining contemporary dance by blending rigorous physical movement with emerging technology. By integrating kinetic motion sensors, 3D projection mapping, and electronic sound design into their staging, the company consistently challenges traditional theatrical formats and explores how the human body navigates an increasingly mediated world.

Together, these practices offer a highly articulate, media-literate exploration of modern life, mapping exactly how the human form responds to, resists, and integrates with a technology-driven landscape.