{"id":19531,"date":"2025-12-25T13:52:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/25\/kay-matschullats-max-reimagines-the-future-of-performance-with-tech\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T13:52:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:52:37","slug":"kay-matschullats-max-reimagines-the-future-of-performance-with-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/25\/kay-matschullats-max-reimagines-the-future-of-performance-with-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Kay Matschullat\u2019s MAX Reimagines the Future of Performance with Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MAX operates at the intersection of artistic creation, scientific inquiry and technology. Photo: Hayley Pfitzer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since ancient times, theater has served as a mirror for society, with the stage acting as a site of representation and reflection where communities confront the forces shaping their realities, from politics and power to identity and belonging. In an era when our relationship to reality is increasingly mediated by devices that filter, support and structure perception and communication, the theatrical stage and performative space have emerged as natural platforms for experimentation across body, language, gesture and technology. Yet, traditional theater has long resisted this mediatization, clinging to a conservative posture that, for years, also defined much of the museum world, rejecting technology and digital expression as though they belonged solely to entertainment or spectacle. However, that resistance is beginning to erode. Theater and performance are opening new spaces for presentation and exchange within the expanding realms of technology and science.<\/p>\n

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One clear example of this shift is Media Art Xploration (MAX), a creative laboratory, production studio and incubator dedicated to discovering, supporting and producing ambitious artistic projects that merge scientific inquiry with cutting-edge technology to reflect the pulse of contemporary culture. Operating at the intersection of art, science and technology, MAX places particular emphasis on performance, theater and multimedia art, catalyzing live and immersive experiences developed by collaborative teams of artists, scientists and creative technologists. Through its open-call fellowship program, MAXMachina functions as a true creative partner, offering financial, logistical and community support to ensure each selected group has the resources needed to realize its vision fully.<\/p>\n

Following MAX\u2019s recent presentations in New York, including the immersive sound experience Sonic Sunset, which debuted at the Museum of the Moving Image and the public showing of the first works by its MAXMachina fellows this November at MiTU580, Observer spoke with the genius ex machina behind the organization, Kay Matschullat<\/a>, executive and producing director of MAX: Media Art Xploration.<\/p>\n

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Kay Matschullat. Courtesy MAX<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matschullat prefers to describe MAX as a laboratory\u2014something that can function as both a production studio and an incubator, much like startup accelerators in the sciences. \u201cSometimes we\u2019re the ones who catalyze the piece\u2014we come up with the idea, gather the group and set things in motion. Other times, the piece comes to us already formed and we step in to support it, bringing collaborators together or working with collectives that already exist,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s really a kind of scientific laboratory in that sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an extensive background in performance, Matschullat has directed premieres of plays by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Derek Walcott<\/a>, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ariel Dorfman<\/a> and V\u00e1clav Havel, among others.<\/p>\n

After decades in the theater, however, she began to feel the form was stagnating. \u201cI began to feel like we were turning into an antique store. I wanted to find a way to evolve,\u201d she recalls. While collaborating with engineers in Silicon Valley, she created a platform to make play development more fluid and adaptable, particularly as economic pressures continued to compress rehearsal time.<\/p>\n

What struck her most was the resistance she encountered within the theater world and the parallel lack of understanding among engineers when it came to performance. \u201cThese two worlds didn\u2019t speak the same language and I wanted to bring them together,\u201d she says. For Matschullat, the zeitgeist of our time is defined by science and technology, shaping cultural consciousness much as religion did during the Renaissance. \u201cWhen I ran into that resistance, I realized how important this conversation was. That\u2019s when we founded the organization. We held a proof-of-concept festival in San Francisco and then eventually moved back to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since founding MAXlive in 2014, Matschullat has produced a series of multi-venue biennial festivals, including MAXlive 2019: A Space Festival<\/em>, which focused on collaborations between scientists and performers; MAXlive 2021: The Neuroverse, which examined intelligence and applications of A.I. in performance; and MAXlive 2023: Where Is My Bod<\/em>y, which explored the changing nature of embodiment through dance, music and immersive performance. Partners include Carnegie Hall, The Exploratorium, MASS MoCA, National Sawdust, New York Live Arts, the Museum of Science (Boston), the California Academy of Sciences and the Highland Center for the Arts.<\/p>\n

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Syntax of Undoing<\/em>, choreographed and directed by Raymond Pinto, was presented in collaboration with creative technologist Team Rolfes and musician Matthew Jamal. Photo: Hayley Pfitzer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The performance The Syntax of Undoing<\/i> by Raymond Pinto<\/a> and Team Rolfes<\/a>, presented at MiTU580 in November, exemplified MAX\u2019s experimental approach\u2014testing new multimedia collaborations and engaging audiences early in the creative process. \u201cEven at that early stage, it\u2019s really important for us to put the work in front of an audience,\u201d Matschullat says. \u201cYou need that time in the laboratory to experiment, but you also need that exchange with the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

On stage, different worlds collided as the performance reimagined The Tempest<\/i>, layering dance, music and real-time visual rendering into a single choreography that blurred distinctions between stage and screen, human and digital body. With Raymond Pinto embodying both Ariel and Caliban, his dual role bridged live dance and digital space, blending choreography with improvised cello by musician Matthew Jamal<\/a> and responsive visual environments by Team Rolfes. Three distinct layers\u2014the musician, the virtual world and Pinto\u2019s dance\u2014merged into a new hybrid dimension.<\/p>\n

MAX deliberately cultivates this balance of collaboration and friction as a driver of creative progress. During the performance, physical and virtual worlds intertwined: the musician, the virtual environment and Pinto\u2019s choreography each generated their own dimension and their convergence produced a new hybrid space altogether. When one of Pinto\u2019s motion sensors malfunctioned mid-performance, it became part of the work, underscoring the friction and fragility inherent in live technology. \u201cThe virtual world-building is one part of it, but the live element brings friction, spontaneity and possibility,\u201d Matschullat reflects. \u201cThat\u2019s what draws people in\u2014the engagement with multiple layers of reality, which feels so natural to us now.\u201d<\/p>\n

This dynamic of embodiment and disruption sits at the core of MAX\u2019s inquiry. \u201cIt\u2019s fascinating how time can be manipulated in these live, hybrid realms,\u201d Matschullat says. \u201cOn stage, time and space merge. But it\u2019s also about the body and how far it can extend beyond the physical.\u201d In this sense, digital embodiment operates not only as a technical approach but also as an aesthetic strategy, increasingly used to heighten awareness of how technology mediates everyday sensory experiences. \u201cEverything today is mediated by technology,\u201d she adds. \u201cBut ultimately, it\u2019s still about the people in the room\u2014their connection, their use of technology to push artistic expression forward and their questioning of what it is and where it\u2019s taking us. It\u2019s about the uncertainty, instability and fragility we all feel in the face of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A natural next step in MAX\u2019s inquiry is artificial intelligence. The organization has already explored it through projects such as Annie Dorsen<\/a>\u2019s Prometheus Firebringer<\/i> and Jurassic Park<\/i>, a satirical reimagining directed by an A.I. system that cast audience members live. \u201cPeople were far more willing to take direction from a machine than from a human,\u201d Matschullat laughs. The result was both humorous and profound, a poetic reflection on consciousness and authorship, mediated by the artists yet sparked by the machine.<\/p>\n

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The performance treats Shakespeare\u2019s The Tempest<\/em> as a conceptual field open for fresh interpretation. Photo: Hayley Pfitzer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She emphasizes that despite these projects, A.I. use remains deeply shaped by human input. Ongoing collaborations with A.I. scientists, such as Tom Griffiths<\/a> at Princeton and research teams at NYU, examine the evolving interface between humans and machines, a frontier even experts admit they do not fully understand. \u201cWhen I first started talking with them five or six years ago, they were far more cautious. Now their curiosity has widened,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re generous with their time because they\u2019re genuinely interested in what these collaborations might reveal.\u201d For Matschullat, A.I. is not something to champion or resist but to interrogate, both as a tool and as a medium for exploring creativity, empathy and the limits of human experience.<\/p>\n

A significant part of MAX\u2019s mission lies in securing funding and partnerships to make such complex productions possible. \u201cWe function both as producers and artistic directors,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe guide the artists creatively, but we also support them on the production side.\u201d Having spent a lifetime in the performing arts, she is acutely aware of how difficult it has become to find spaces that support artists both aesthetically and financially, especially for those working at the intersection of art, science and technology, where timelines are longer, and systems of production diverge from traditional institutional models.<\/p>\n

From the outset, MAX\u2019s structure has been intentionally nomadic, operating without a fixed venue and instead partnering with existing ones. Like a theater company whose productions travel, the organization concentrates its resources on programming while relying on venue partners for physical infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Premiered at the Museum of the Moving Image during Climate Week, Sonic Sunset<\/i>, one of MAX\u2019s most ambitious productions, will travel in an expanded form to the Boston Museum of Science in January. Conceived in collaboration with scientists and bioacousticians studying endangered ecosystems, the work transforms raw data into an immersive soundscape that enables audiences to experience climate change firsthand through audio. Directed by Matschullat with Emmy Award-winning sound designer and composer Nick Ryan<\/a> and projection designer David Bengali<\/a>, the piece draws on more than a decade of field recordings from sub-Arctic waters, the rainforests of Borneo and India\u2019s Western Ghats. Using 63-channel spatial audio technology, it reconstructs the dimensionality and presence of these ecosystems as though unfolding around the listener. \u201cPeople talk about seeing climate change,\u201d Matschullat says. \u201cBut in this piece, you actually hear it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her, Sonic Sunset<\/i> stands as one of MAX\u2019s most rewarding interdisciplinary projects, demonstrating how art can illuminate science not merely as data but as shared cultural experience. She notes that museums have become increasingly receptive to media and digital art since the pandemic, embracing immersive and time-based works more readily. Yet because museums rarely produce such pieces in-house, incubators like MAX play a crucial role in bridging that gap. \u201cIt\u2019s an interesting moment,\u201d Matschullat observes. \u201cDurational pieces ask something different of audiences. In museums, people wander in and out, so the challenge and the opportunity is to hold their attention long enough to draw them into the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Vibrating Waiting for You to Touch<\/em>, directed by Julianna Johnston with sound design by Dylan Marx and choreography by Annalise Gehling and Lavy, is an electrifying fusion of dance, technology and digital introspection. Photo: Hayley Pfitzer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If the art and theater worlds once considered themselves separate, they are now converging through performance, media-based and immersive practices. \u201cWhat\u2019s emerging is much closer to theater in its complexity,\u201d she says. \u201cIt involves choreography, light, music and movement and it\u2019s far more collaborative, which is what I love about the laboratory model. These teams create worlds that couldn\u2019t exist without everyone\u2019s combined imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working alongside scientists also opens new pathways. Research institutions increasingly invite artists into collaboration, drawing audiences that are curious, interdisciplinary and open. \u201cBoth scientists and artists feel a deep sense of reward in working together,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are so many parallels between the two: both begin with a hypothesis and both involve testing, observing and deciding whether something works. That shared process creates a wonderful give-and-take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Science provides data and structure, and art transforms information into a sensory and emotional experience, something beyond fact and closer to the sublime. \u201cThe goal is to create an experience where the senses are disarmed, and the audience simply takes it in,\u201d she adds. For Matschullat, this synthesis, in which art reframes research as a visceral narrative, allows both scientists and audiences to feel knowledge rather than merely comprehend it.<\/p>\n

It may be precisely within this transdisciplinary and open field of shared experimentation between art, science and technology that the foundations for a deeper understanding of our relationship to reality begin to take shape, at once sensorial, cognitive and emotional. These intersections are where the most urgent questions emerge, challenging assumptions and reclaiming creative agency over the tools that increasingly shape perception. \u201cWe need both perspectives at the table if we want to navigate this technological world,\u201d Matschullat concludes. \u201cArtists exploring new realms of possibility, while grounding that exploration in scientific insight.\u201d<\/p>\n

More Arts interviews<\/b><\/h3>\n

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