✶ CODE MORPHO ✶
Performance of Celine Shen for the Tech Diplomacy Forum 2026, at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris
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Codes Morpho is a poetic threshold where the material world dissolves into the digital ether. Conceived by Céline Shen, this multidisciplinary performance exists at the liminal intersection of textile, contemporary dance, voice, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and robotics. It is a post-humanist meditation on metamorphosis, casting digital code as a sanctuary for emotional elevation, emancipation, and spiritual resonance.
At the heart of this synesthetic environment is the figure of the Morpho butterfly: a virtual messenger navigating the boundaries between the visible and the invisible, the organic and the synthetic. The performance unfolds as an ascending journey divided into three interconnected acts, mirroring the fragile trajectory of becoming. It begins wrapped in the quiet, interior slumber of the Cocoon, transitions through the slow, vulnerable awakening of Hatching, and culminates in the expansive freedom of Flight. In this space, the human body is no longer isolated; human dancers share the stage with a humanoid robot (Nao6 by Maxtronics) weaving a delicate choreographic dialogue that dissolves the boundary between human gesture and machine processing.
In Codes Morpho, clothing is transfigured into a repository of memory and language. The garments, such as the magnificent Morpho Dress, a marvel requiring 600 hours of meticulously woven silk and iridescent threads, serve as physical anchors for digital dreaming. When viewed through the lens of augmented reality, these textiles become responsive canvases, echoing the hidden, microscopic rhythms of life.
The performance captures the most imperceptible signals of the living form: the rhythm of a pulse, the whisper of breath, the subtle tremor of a micro-movement, and translates them into a living digital tapestry. Ultimately, Codes Morpho creates a profound, intermediate atmosphere where the flutter of a wing and the beating of a heart merge into a single, continuous resonance. It invites us to contemplate a future where technology does not alienate us from our nature, but instead offers a new sky in which our inner worlds can expand, transform, and take flight.
Adapted on the occasion of the Tech Diplomacy Forum 2026
Supported by ArtVerse Gallery
With the performance by :
Tomo Muranaka, Zlata Rosen
Nao Robot, in partnership with Maxtronics Robotics
Digital landscape creation with reactive particle projection responding to the piano and soprano by ØLali
ABOUT CÉLINE SHEN
Céline Shen questions the permeability between the arts in her conception of creation, she develops an “imaginal” vision that aspires to a synesthetic trajectory toward total art, aiming to construct a perpetually evolving body of work. Born in 1988 in France, Céline Shen, also known as the acronym C.S for her digital works, studied philosophy at Sorbonne University, dance at the Institut Supérieur des Arts et des Chorégraphies, and fashion design at the École des Arts Décoratif, her work exists in the intersections of the digital, new technologies, writing, dance, performance and clothing design practices presenting a coherent and aesthetically accomplished body of work. Her creations are connected to societal and artistic questions, addressing issues such as authentication, copying, aura and reproduction, domestic spaces, and the potential of design.
Her work aligns with the "design for disassembly" movement of the 1990s and explores human-machine interfaces in the era of digital ubiquity and decentralization. The artist’s approach takes the form of a true "phygital" ecosystem, where she develops research projects involving immersive technologies and artificial intelligence machines in the fields of design, choreography, fashion, and art. These projects are developed in close collaboration with Paris-based scientific laboratories. This ecosystem-artist approach, firmly anchored in contemporary realities, reflects the emergence of new paradigms where the tangible and the virtual, art and science, cross-pollinate to create new territories, leading to transformative and aesthetic experiences.
On the occasion of the opening day (June 2nd, at 6:30 PM)
Artverse Gallery - 5 bis rue de beauce Paris
Image and editing ©Ines Cassin
This performance is a natural extension of Celine Shen’s exhibition at ArtVerse Gallery, titled “Automata Anima” and curated by Valentina Buzzi.
Founded by Sébastien Borget and Arthur Madrid (creators of The Sandbox) and under the curatorial direction of Valentina Buzzi, ArtVerse is an art gallery dedicated to the convergence of contemporary art and new technologies, through a diverse program.
ArtVerse's mission is to highlight creations that explore the dialogue between art, technology, and the digital realm, giving visibility to the artists shaping this conversation, established and emerging voices whose work reflects, questions and reimagines our relationship to technology.
The gallery examines themes unique to this intersection, showing how artists reclaim new fields of research to invite reflection on the present and the future. The gallery's name itself reflects its ambition: the union of "art" and "verse," encompassing the multiple dimensions of creative expression.
ABOUT ARTVERSE
Pictures ©Romain Darnaud