Orion Maxted

Artist Statement:

I am a theatre maker, performance artist, and affiliated practice-led researcher at the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Where I also direct the ArtScience research group. My work explores the intersections of theatre, play, systems science, and complexity, often manifesting as emergent, self-organising algorithmic theatre pieces, embodied models of complex systems, and methodologies for distributed collective intelligence.

I’m interested in examining the conventions and assumptions of Western theatre—and, by extension, modern western epistemology—not to uphold them, but rather to question, invert, and explore their alternatives. When I refer to the conventions of theatre, consider the fixed script: a sequence where a specific action takes place, followed by a character saying this, then that, and so on, all performed in nearly the same way each time. This is enacted by people pretending to be someone else, with an audience observing from a safe distance behind an imaginary “fourth wall,” all organised under a top-down, centralised structure, directed by a “god-like” figure dictating every move. In short, not that. 

Instead, I am creating and researching modes of cybernetic theatre, algorithmic theatre, and systemic theatre. Rather than following a fixed script, I ask: What could theatre be if we approached it as a complex adaptive system, a distributed algorithm, or a kind of collective intelligence? What if, instead of centralised control, we gave everyone a set of rules—for instance, rules governing how they process language in real time, from input to output, or how they interact with one another? In this way, theatre becomes a cybernetic system, a collective mind, or even, a kind of computer model, made of people. How does such a theatre “represent” the world compared to traditional forms? What new sensibilities might it foster? What can this reveal about the world we inhabit? And what new forms of collective intelligence might emerge through this practice?

These explorations result in performances that invite participants to collectively become a new kind of world together. For example, The Brain: Theatre of Mind, produced by Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam, transforms the audience into a collective mind. Similarly, Monsterland combines masks, monsters, and self-organisation in the forest at night, while BANANA turns language into an absurd ritual in under ten minutes, using only a word and a piece of fruit.

At CLEA, my research draws on contemporary theories of complexity, emergence, self-organisation, and cognitive science. I frequently use play theatre and theatre games to investigate the homologies between play and complex systems: play as a mode of exploration and creation, and complexity as a tool for understanding and designing emergent phenomena. 

Beyond producing theatre works, I curate collective intelligences and organise emergent, self-organising symposia as part of CLEA’s Systems at Play program. This includes initiatives like the Self-Organizing Symposium on Self-Organization, The Imaginary Institute, and Buckminster College. Through these projects, I aim to create expansive spaces for transdisciplinary exploration and to deepen practices that extend across theatre, collective creativity, systems sciences, and education, allowing these fields to evolve dynamically together.

I hold a master’s in theatre from DasArts, a research centre for experimental performance in Amsterdam, and was the first artist fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Amsterdam. 


Biography

I was born in Weymouth, Dorset, a small seaside town on the south coast of England in the ancient kingdom of Wessex. As a child, I learned directly through play in nature, reading the patterns of the sea, rocks, and sky. By the time I was 18, I wanted to study both mathematics and art, but at the time this combination wasn’t allowed, so I settled on art. Later, I studied computing in Glasgow, where I immersed myself in the patterns of algorithms and the electronic music coming from the late 90s Glasgow acid-techno scene.

During this time, I studied Wudang Tai Chi, and began developing a method of musical composition and dance by attaching recording equipment to my feet. The feedback loop between the sounds I danced to and the rhythms I generated, created a feedback cycle of copy, error and over-correction. I then transposed these rhythms into electronic music and began developing a theory of feedback dynamics governing improvisational composition, which I called the “music of mistakes.” This led to my move to Brighton in 2003, where I studied a combined undergraduate degree in Music and Visual Art with Dr. Conal Gleeson. I continued exploring circular, iterative compositional processes and became fascinated by the relationship between language and musicality.

From 2004 to 2013, I toured internationally as a performance artist, presenting 100s of solo and collaborative performances ranging from minimal conceptual art to large-scale immersive situations. My work dealt with recurring themes of strange loops in logic and language; abstracting processes from one domain and applying them to another, especially, the application of algorithmic, or music-like structures to non-musical contexts, e.g. space, language, which I refer to as “music with content” (a phrase I borrowed from "A Thousand Plateaus" describing Deleuze and Guattari's approach to philosophy) became central to pieces like Banana. As such I began developing transformational grammars and a set of ideas around creative dynamics. I was also particularly fascinated by how the locus of performance could be relocated to the mind of the audience, exploring this in works such as CatDog and Reality Exchange. This period gave me the opportunity to refine my understanding of the dynamics between the performer and audience, and to develop my thinking around improvisation, composition, and collective creative processes. During this time, I also frequently collaborated with the Estonian performance art collective Non Grata, touring across Europe, Asia, and America, which deepened my appreciation for the unpredictability, emergent qualities, and spirit of performance.

In 2013, I went to DasArts (now DAS Master of Theatre) in Amsterdam, an experimental performance school, to further my studies. There, I compiled the various compositional processes I had developed into a performance system called “THE MACHINE” - a theatre piece that functioned as a human computer. The actors internalised an algorithmic score and performed as a distributed human computation system, which generated an endless stream of performance possibilities. What interested me most was the way the system evolved, with new rules and sub-systems emerging over time. This laid the foundation for much of my later work.

Through the BioArt and Design award, I met Professor Hans Westerhof, a pioneer in systems biology. We began discussing ways to apply the principles of collective computation from "THE MACHINE" to simulate biological systems. This collaboration led to "HUMAN SIMULATION," a work produced by MU Eindhoven and Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam.

Around this time, I also met Professor Francis Heylighen, head of the Global Brain Research Group at the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA), who invited me to attend his courses at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) on Complexity, Evolution, and Cognitive Systems. These courses allowed me to connect my intuitive understanding of systems and cybernetics with formal academic concepts. We collaborated on a Brussels version of "HUMAN SIMULATION," and in 2017, I curated a symposium on Cybernetic, Algorithmic, and Systemic Theatre at Frascati Theatre, together with dramaturg Lara Staal. One of the key projects from this symposium was "Life as Metaphor," a collaboration with Hans Westerhof and his PhD student Stefania Astrologo, which explored metaphors in systems biology within a theatrical context. This meeting also brought Professor Heylighen and myself together with Katarina Petrović for the first time and was pivotal in shaping the formation of the ArtScience Research Group at CLEA in 2018.

In 2019, I developed "THE BRAIN: THEATRE OF MIND," in collaboration with Professor Heylighen, a project where the audience, using a smartphone app I co-designed, became a collective intelligence, and eponymous lead-character, co-writing the performance in real time. This piece was produced by Frascati Theatre, with Bertha Spelstra as dramaturg. Later that year, with support from Hans Westerhof, I became the first artistic fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at the University of Amsterdam, working with Prof. Peter Sloot. My research there focused on creating forms of theatre and collective intelligence that weren’t based on fixed scripts, but on the dynamics of complex adaptive systems.

This work was interrupted by the pandemic in 2020. During the lockdown, I co-founded "The Interactions," an informal research group with colleagues from IAS, including Renske Vroomans and Enrico Sandro Colizzi, to explore the intersection of evolution, complexity, and performance practice. We met weekly online throughout the pandemic, and the group expanded to include artists and scientists from CLEA ArtScience which was interrupted due to the pandemic. Together, we created and tested games and exercises aimed at fostering emergent collective intelligence. This led to performances like "THE WONDER MACHINE" and "NEGATIVE POETRY (Human Algorithm)," in collaboration with Katarina Petrovic and others from "The Interactions."

During the pandemic, with theatres closed, I began developing nature-inspired ritual games in the forest with my partner Jill Locke. This, combined with my experience with "THE MACHINE" and "The Interactions," reignited my interest in the dynamics of play, particularly children's play. I realised that much of what I sought in the intersection of theatre and complex adaptive systems could be found in the open-ended, self-organising nature of play.

When the lockdown ended, I started a group focused on exploring the dynamics of children's games and play, recognizing that many people needed play, touch, and community to heal after the pandemic.

In 2023,I relaunched the ArtScience Research Group at CLEA, where we developed a methodology of algorithmic theatre, play, and complexity science. In 2024, together with Professor Heylighen and Tomas Veloz, we worked together on The Origins of Goal Directedness project, as part of which, I curated "Systems At Play: Self-Organizing Symposium on Self-Organization" at Pilar, VUB. This meta-collective intelligence brought together around 80 artists, scientists, and academics to form a living, self-organising system. This was followed by "Systems At Play: In the Noosphere," in collaboration with the Human Energy Project and a.pass. Today the CLEA ArtScience Department is a thriving community, and we plan to initiate the next iteration, "Systems At Play: The Imaginary Institute," later in 2024. 

Since 2019, I have been a lecturer in the School of Thinking at VUB and, since 2022, a teacher at Buckminster College, an experimental complexity education program for gifted children. In 2024, together with the ArtScience group, I was appointed director of Buckminster College, where we are currently developing a play-based education program for complexity. Our aim is to help children learn through play, nature, theatre, and interaction with artists and scientists in an intergenerational ecosystem. We believe play is an innate way to learn and understand complexity, and we aim to create an educational space where we can develop this further.