DUETTO AT theGATE FESTIVAL 2026

The project

As part of theGATE Festival 2026, Duetto, a research project by Sony CSL – Rome, will be presented as an exploration of the relationship between artificial intelligence and human movement. The project resonates strongly with the context of theGATE, a festival dedicated to the convergence of science, technology, arts and society, and to the new forms of cultural experimentation emerging at their intersections.

Duetto approaches the body as a form of language. In this perspective, postures become elementary units, while movement unfolds as a complex and expressive sequence, much like meaning emerging through words and sentences. But the project does more than describe motion: it seeks to recognize relations, possibilities and transformations within gesture, opening a space in which AI can not only interpret movement, but also respond to it in creative ways.

Dance provides the ideal ground for this exploration. It is a field in which technique, intention, memory, listening, variation and invention coexist in constant tension, making visible the richness and complexity of embodied expression. In this context, Duetto does not imagine artificial intelligence as a passive tool, nor as a system meant to replace performers or choreographers. Instead, it proposes AI as a creative interlocutor: a responsive presence capable of engaging in a real-time exchange with the moving body and suggesting new possibilities in return.

At the heart of Duetto lies a genuinely human-in-the-loop vision. The human performer does not simply initiate the process but continuously shapes and redirects what the system understands and proposes. In this sense, the project opens a wider reflection on creativity itself, asking how AI might expand human expressive capacity rather than substitute it. What emerges is not a model of replacement, but one of dialogue: a way of thinking about intelligence, invention and embodiment as shared, dynamic processes.

For its presentation at theGATE Festival, Duetto will also be accompanied by an interactive installation inviting the public to engage directly with a dancing AI. Visitors will not only observe the project, but enter a live encounter with it, experiencing movement as a space of exchange between human presence and machine interpretation.

In this way, Duetto speaks directly to the spirit of the festival. By bringing together artistic research, scientific inquiry and technological experimentation, it offers an example of how collaborations across disciplines can generate new questions, new forms, and new ways of imagining the relationship between humans and intelligent systems. As theGATE Festival continues to explore future boundaries, Duetto contributes to this reflection by approaching the body not as something to be reduced to data, but as a living source of knowledge, creativity and transformation.

The artists

Duetto is a project led by Alessandro Londei and Denise Lanzieri, researchers at Sony CSL – Rome, with Milena Di Canio leading its cultural and communication dimension; it is mentored by Vittorio Loreto, Director at Sony CSL – Rome.