Lo Höckner

THIS MAGIC IS IN SPITE OF ME

SENTIMENTAL BITS

Four performers and a humanoid sex robot follow traces of their data into the inscrutable black box of an artificial intelligence that analyses their emotions. They use their bodies as troublemakers to disturb surveillance technologies and provoke glitches – errors in the system. They become entangled in playing with the transformation of their physical and digital bodies and in doing so subvert the categories of the artificial intelligence. Alternative bodies, images and narratives emerge between technological projections and the audience's gaze.

^{artistic direction, co-choreography, concept: Gloria Höckner | performance, co-choreography, text: Katja-Maria/Kay Taavitsainen, Lois Bartel, Rebecca Pokua Korang, Tanja Erhart, Gloria Höckner | dramaturgy: Isabel Gatzke | music: Victoria Keddie | costume, masks: Ilona Klein | stagedesign: Einsiedel & Jung | light design, technical direction: Ricarda Schnoor | programming: Paul Geisler, Fabian Nitschkowski | 3D-models: Vanessa A. Opoku | production, communication: Stückliesel | | assistance: Ruxin Liu | video-operator: Mathias Hollaender & Alexander Nham | audio description: Xenia Taniko, Nic Meyer & Gerald Pirner | editing audio description: Frank Amann | video documentation: Martin Prinoth | video teaser: Friederike Höppner | scene photographs: Jonas Fischer | graphic: Lisa-Marie Fechteler}

Trailer | Sentimental Bits from Hark Empen on Vimeo.

Lo Höckner

(they/them) is a choreographer, somatic practitioner, and activist. Originally from Vienna, Lo has lived and worked in Hamburg and now Berlin. After experiencing burnout while working as a full-time freelance choreographer, Lo began training in Somatic Experiencing® and Pantarei, and turned increasingly toward activism, trauma resolution work, and embodied change. They are searching for ways to counter isolation and political paralysis by building support systems and relations that are empowering and transformative.

Out of this, they initiated the Embodied Social Justice Learning Circle — a bi-weekly gathering in Berlin to practice and learn together. Their work focuses on the connection between the body and social/systemic change, and on countering the experience of disempowerment.

They work in 1:1 sessions, facilitate workshops, practice as a cross-media artist, are engaged in environmental activism and are passionately training in the martial art form Muay Thai. Lo studied Performance Studies and Theatre, Film and Media Science in Hamburg, Vienna and Lyon.

^{(Status: 2026)}

www.gloriahoeckner.net