Studio DRIFT: Social Sacrifice
Ocean Space, Venice, 2022

Dutch collective DRIFT presents there first ever indoor aerial drone performance—Social Sacrifice—a choreography of 100 A.I. "fish" that move through the volumes of the Chiesa di San Lorenzo. Having studied the movements and formations of starling murmurations for years, mapping their behaviours onto autonomous flying drones, here DRIFT have taken inspiration from the collective intelligence of schools of fish evading predation, highlighting the tension between individual freedom and collective action in the face of existential threat. Red predator drones and white members of school interact and flow together above the heads of the audience, accompanied by a soundtrack composed by artist and musician Don Diablo.

D.H.office served as project manager for the performance series, coordinating all suppliers, managing operations of the live events, and overseeing documentation of the project.