Avital Meshi & Dorte Bjerre Jensen
Rest!
Rest! (2026)
by Avital Meshi and Dorte Bjerre Jensen
Performance Studies Graduate Group UC Davis, California.
Rest! is a durational performance that explores the relationship between an AI system and the human body. In the work, a performer lies on a mattress attempting to rest while an AI system continuously observes their body. Through visual analysis of posture and presence, the system produces spoken directives intended to encourage the performer to continue resting.
Throughout the performance, a human body becomes the object of persistent machine observation. The AI directives may sometimes appear supportive or meditative, while at other moments they become intrusive, absurd, or oddly authoritative. What begins as encouragement to rest gradually reveals the tension between human experience and algorithmic interpretation.
By placing a resting body under constant machine observation, Rest! reflects on contemporary cultural attitudes toward productivity and inactivity. In many social and technological systems, rest is framed as inefficiency, laziness, or failure. The performance asks what happens when AI systems are increasingly expected to replace human labor. What will happen then? Will we be able to rest? What if AI systems encourage rest, or instead ensure that we remain passive, inactive, and non participatory?
The work examines how AI technology frames and interprets human behavior. Rest, a fundamentally subjective and internal state, becomes something the machine attempts to verify, guide, and regulate through visual observation. The performance raises questions about how AI systems may increasingly participate in shaping everyday human actions, even those traditionally considered private or unproductive.
Over the duration of the performance, the performer continues attempting to rest, shifting positions, breathing slowly. At times genuine sleep may occur. Meanwhile, the AI system continues to watch, instruct, suggest, interpret, and speak, transforming rest into a negotiated space between human vulnerability and computational surveillance.
Dorte Bjerre Jensen is currently a PhD at UC Davis Performance Studies and artist in residence at The Manetti Shrem Art Museum. As a Danish artist and educator, Jensen's work is anchored in an evolving artistic inquiry into multisensory relations of attention through movement manifested as live art installations, site-specific work, activism, lectures, classes, workshops, writing and mentorship. Jensen's works Sharing Perspectives and INviteME have been published in Frontiers in Psychology and Performance Research Journal. Jensen holds an MFA from the Danish National School of Performing Arts and have been performing, practicing, writing and teaching improvisation and performative scores for more than 25 years in Denmark and abroad. From 2019-2025 Jensen was a part of an extensive art and science research project Experimenting, Experiencing, Reflecting (EER) between Studio Olafur Eliasson and the Interacting Minds Centre (IMC), Århus university. As part of EER, Jensen developed and performed the piece Sharing Perspectives at Tate Modern London. Sharing Perspectives that is grounded within the practice of improvisation and score design, gives a rare insight into the world of the other by embodying another person’s perspective. One of Jensen's latest work Excorcitium is a participatory performative space that moves across the etymologies of exorcism and exercise to address the destructive structures we currently face. The piece offers practices in relation to the question: How can we be together differently as an act of resistance? And within such an immersive collaborative ritual new futures arise. Performed at the Neue National Gallery Berlin 2025.
Avital Meshi is a new media and performance artist exploring the impact of AI on human identity and sociality. Meshi invites viewers to become entangled with AI algorithms, reclaim agency, and spark discussions on identity transformation. Meshi is a PhD student in Performance Studies and Science and Technology Studies at UC Davis. She holds an MFA from UC Santa Cruz’s Digital Arts and New Media program and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also holds an MSc and a BSc in Behavioral Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Meshi’s work has been exhibited widely, including a solo show at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and group shows at CURRENTS New Media Festival, Women Made Gallery, Flux Factory, SIGGRAPH, ISEA, NeurIPS, and more.
Contact Avital through her website: https://www.avitalmeshi.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avitalix/ or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avital-meshi-39749110/