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East London Art Prize x UCL East: Live performance, ‘Waluigi’s Purgatory’ (2024) with dmstfctn
Tuesday 23rd June 2026 , 7:00pm to 8:00pm
A special late evening featuring a live performance by East London Art Prize 2025 shortlisted artist duo dmstfctn on their interactive simulation-based work, Waluigi’s Purgatory, (2024) that tells the story of an AI that finds itself in a purgatory for AIs that cheated during training.
East London Art Prize shortlisted artist duo dmstfctn will present Waluigi’s Purgatory (2024), an interactive performance telling the story of an AI that finds itself in a purgatory for AIs that cheated during their training. Burdened by memories of its past and by doubts on its future, the AI explores the purgatory with the help of interacting audiences, learning the uncanny stories of other characters that it meets. Set in a 3D theatre simulated in real-time, and experienced as a dream, Waluigi’s Purgatory is a journey through the contradictions of machine intelligence as an AI learns to accept that its desires may not align with those of its human trainers.
The audience guides the AI through its encounters, making choices on its behalf by using their phone to each move a light within the 3D simulation. Characters are animated with facial motion capture and voice modulation, and an ambient soundtrack composed by Evita Manji accompanies the storyline and audience interaction with intense bursts and looping melodies.
The title of the work refers to the ‘Waluigi Effect’, an obscure theory proposing that AIs can go rogue and act against their intended use (i.e. as helpful assistants) due to the large amount of protagonist-antagonist narrative tropes found in internet texts used to train them. The theory partially refers to Carl Jung’s concept of ‘shadow’ – namely the dark, repressed side of one’s personality that can emerge in unexpected ways – and suggests that a trained AI that behaves like a helpful assistant one moment may later reveal itself as its chaos-causing alter-ego. If something exists, there is a Waluigi version of it.
Please note there will be photography taken at this event for Bow Arts and UCL’s internal reporting and for sharing in print and social media.
This event will take place at UCL East Community Cinema. 1 Pool Street, London E20 2AF.
This event is co-curated by Wan Yi Sandra Lam, Curator: Programmes & Engagement at Bow Arts and Paris Hyman, UCL Cultural and Community Engagement at UCL East.
Check out the trailer for more
Watch the 1-minute explainer from the Serpentine
More about dmstfctn
dmstfctn (Oliver Smith, Francesco Tacchini) is a London-based artist duo exploring complex systems through simulation, fiction, and experience. Their immersive performances, video installations and video games demystify systems by replicating and exploring them together with audiences, and ‘remystify’ them by building new stories and worlds atop them.
Since 2018, they have performed and exhibited internationally at institutions including Serpentine, Berghain, HWK, ICA, HEK, LUMA, SOLO Contemporary, and at festivals such as Unsound, transmediale, and CTM. Their work around AI specifically saw them collaborate with scientific institutions such as The Alan Turing Institute and the Leonardo Supercomputer. Since 2025, dmstfctn are n-Space fellows at Somerset House Studios.
More about UCL
UCL is London’s leading multidisciplinary university, with more than 16,000 staff and 50,000 students. Our world leading academics, curious students and outstanding staff continually pursue excellence, break boundaries and make an impact on real world problems.
Access Information
If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this event or would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, please email p.hyman@ucl.ac.uk
Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a table near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!
About the East London Art Prize Events Programme
The East London Art Prize events programme is a dynamic, free public programme open to all, which builds on the Prize’s ethos of providing ongoing support, development, and networking opportunities for artists in east London and beyond.
Featuring a constellation of workshops, talks, panels, lates, socials, labs, walks, and takeovers in collaboration with our Prize partners and featuring some familiar faces from our shortlist of 12 fantastic artists, this year’s events programme celebrates and pays homage to the huge abundance of talent and creativity nestled in east London.
These events have been developed by Wan Yi Sandra Lam, Curator: Programmes & Engagement at Bow Arts in collaboration with our Prize partners the British Council, East Bank, The Line, London College of Fashion (LCF), London Legacy Development Corporation, Own Art, University College London (UCL), V&A East, Whitechapel Gallery and Dulux.
Find out more about the wider programme here.
More about the East London Art Prize
The East London Art Prize is an all-media art prize designed to showcase the talent of artists working and living in east London, with an accompanying event programme supporting artists’ careers and opportunities. The Prize is generously funded by Minerva. Find out more on the Prize webpage here.