The Inexorable Non-Player Character
This enchanting performance glides into the circulating motion between digital and physical embodiment, predictions, desire and resistance.
Nina Davies & 2girls1comp:
The Inexorable Non-Player Character
Performance: 5–6 September / Talk: 6 September
Helsinki
The Inexorable Non-Player Character is a performance by Nina Davies and 2girls1comp looking into how our digital and physical bodies are inevitably shaping each other.
The piece emerges from a collision of two earlier works. Nina Davies’ Precursing investigates NPC dance trends on TikTok as subconscious acts of resistance against a future dictated by predictive technologies. Modding duo 2girls1comp's Dancing Plague is a video game mod where male NPCs in GTA V are commanded to perform dance moves coded for the game's female characters, who now instead sit and watch.
Together, these two works merge into an uncanny live performance built on the online dance trends that trace their roots back to digital spaces, asking how our physical bodies and our machines are caught in feedback loops, reshaping each other. Through speculative routes, The Inexorable Non-Player Character reveals how these feedback loops end up influencing predictive technologies and AI systems. The performance plays with poetics of automation, digital liminality, performed self and loss and finding of spontaneous agency in a pulsating entanglement of the offline and online bodies.
This 30-minute-long site-specific performance was first commissioned and presented in Berlin by transmediale festival in 2025 and is now presented for the first time in Helsinki by Art and Media Culture Agency M-Cult in collaboration with Zodiak – Center for New Dance. The performance is part of M-Cult's Gaming the Civic programme, which invites audiences to experience, play, and take part in game-based artworks that explore civic engagement and democratic participation in public spaces.
Gaming the Civic programme is supported by Alfred Kordelin Foundation and AVEK Audiovisual Centre. The performance is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and The Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland and the British Embassy.
The Inexorable Non-Player Character
by Nina Davies & 2girls1comp
SEPTEMBER 5–6 | Saturday at 16:00 | Sunday at 13:00 & 15:00 |
| Starting at the lobby of Dance House Helsinki, Cable Factory |
| 30 min | Free and open to all | Presenting: M-Cult in collaboration with Zodiak |
Performers:
Nina Davies
Juan Pablo Cámara
Christina Lovey
Yi-Chi Lee
Richard Pye
Meet the artists! An artist talk exploring the work will be held on Sunday after the second performance – more information coming soon.
Accessibility and performance notes
Part of the performance takes place outdoors with a short walk, so please dress according to the weather. The venue and the route is wheelchair accessible. There is limited seating during parts of the performance. If you have mobility needs or questions about accessibility, please contact beforehand: laura.jurmu@m-cult.org.
Please be respectful to all performers. Do not touch the performers or make hurtful, inappropriate, or disruptive comments during the performance. Please note that some video works presented as part of the event may contain flashing lights or imagery.
About the Creators
2girls1comp is a modding duo founded in 2023 by Marco De Mutiis and Alexandra Pfammatter. Their work changes the logic of video games as an act of creative counter-play, revealing the social and economic fabric in which they are immersed: from reclaiming global digital infrastructures to commenting on free labor within the capitalist ideologies of the gaming industry.
Nina Davies is an artist who considers the present moment through observing dance in popular culture and how it is disseminated, circulated, made, and consumed. Her previous research has examined the commodification of the dancing body on digital platforms, as well as a rethinking of today's dances as the traditional dances of the future. Oscillating between the use of fiction and non-fiction, her work helps build new critical frameworks for engaging with dance practices.
Her work has recently been exhibited at The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds; Aksioma, Ljubljana; FACT, Liverpool; Western Front, Vancouver; and Artspace, Sydney, and she has performed her work at venues such as Tate Britain, Somerset House and The Photographers Gallery in London. In 2021, she co-founded Future Artefacts FM, an artist-run program that showcases artists working with speculative fiction for broadcast, which she co-hosts with artist Niamh Schmidtke and curator Rebecca Edwards.
About Gaming the Civic
The performance is part of Art and Media Culture Agency’s Gaming the Civic programme, which brings together media art, game design, critical thinking, and the gaming industry. Programme explores how games can function as platforms for civic engagement and collective imagination.
Gaming the Civic is organised in collaboration with Aalto University’s Game Design and Development and New Media programmes.
About M-Cult – Art & Media Culture Agency
M-Cult develops and presents art and media culture, with a focus on the social and political dimensions of media and technology. They connect artists and local communities to global concerns, operating through art commissions, residencies and learning programmes. M-Cult was founded in 2000 by Minna Tarkka (1960–2023). Pioneering internet-based projects and participatory media production, M-Cult has played a key role in introducing media art and culture into public spaces beyond traditional art institutions. Over the past two decades, M-Cult has produced hundreds of artworks, hosted international artist residencies, organised workshops and public programmes, and developed communal TV and radio formats and art festivals. This work has explored the evolving intersections of media culture, civic society and art – always in collaboration with artists and local communities.
Today, M-Cult remains committed to working with our community of collaborators. Together, they continue shaping more democratic and imaginative futures for media, art and society.
About Zodiak – Center for New Dance
Zodiak – Center for New Dance is the only producer and venue in Helsinki focusing solely on contemporary dance and choreography. Zodiak's program of performances is artistically curated and primarily based on an open call. Zodiak's facilities are at the Cable Factory in the district of Ruoholahti in Helsinki. Zodiak is also one of Dance House Helsinki's programme partners. In 2027, Zodiak – Center for New Dance will celebrate its 30th anniversary, alongside the 40th anniversary of the association behind the center, Zodiak Presents ry. During these decades hundreds of Finland’s most highly considered contemporary dance artists and artistic designers have been presented under the umbrella of Zodiak.
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