Bio
I am currently completing a monograph on the politics of movement in logistical capitalism and technologies of movement-based surveillance. Building on my longstanding engagement with choreography as both a practice of producing movement and a mode of inquiry, this project examines how digital technologies, media infrastructures, and data regimes capture, track, and govern movement across multiple scales. The research explores the datafication of movement, from embodied and everyday mobilities to larger logistical and networked systems, situating these developments within contemporary political, economic, and technological transformations.
My research explores the intersections of movement, digital media, and the politics of space. My current work examines physical AI and its relation to capitalist production, drawing on the history and theory of choreography, critical data and AI studies, as well as architectural and infrastructure research. I teach as a lecturer at Ruhr University Bochum.
My new research examines the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and the body. Focusing on Physical AI and Vision-Language-Action Models (VLAs), it investigates their application in dance and industrial labor. The project critically explores AI-driven robotics, virtual training environments, and the extractive economies of movement data. Particular attention is paid to the use of Physical AI in dance rehearsal practices and robotic training loops, highlighting how embodied movement becomes a resource for contemporary AI systems.
I have written extensively on dance and performance, published in two monographs. Moving Relation. Touch in Contemporary Dance (2016 Transcript Verlag, 2020 Routledge [English translation]) focuses on practices and theories of touch and their relation to movement, affect, and experience in dance. The second monograph Performancekunst und die Politik des Handelns (2025 August Verlag) discusses contemporary performance politics with a focus on artistic modes of planetary practice.
In 2020 I co-founded the publishing platform nocturne (with Julia Bee). We explore experimental forms of pedagogy between academia, art and activism.
Thinking about experimental publishing and/or pedagogy is also part of my writing.
My website at Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Email: gerko.egert@rub.de
Instagram: @grk.grt