Driving a Driverless Train: Exhausting Extras and Automated Performance

The article examines automation and artificial intelligence through the prism of theatrical extras and supernumeraries. Theatrical extras are primarily valued for their aesthetic contributions, including their ability to enrich the mise-en-scène, manipulate lighting, or absorb sound within various visual and auditory landscapes. Drawing a parallel with the supernumeraries of 19th century spectacles, contemporary extras are, in essence, engaged in theatrical art labor. But in a contemporary context of automation, this labor undergoes notable transformation, shifting from the actual execution of tasks to a performative enactment of these tasks, akin to a driver who occupies the role of not driving in an automated vehicle. Automation often transforms work from actually “doing” a job, to performing, or “acting” to do a job, like a driver who is placed in the position of not driving an automated vehicle. At the core of this exploration resides the work of Samuel Beckett, whose oeuvre provides a ground for investigating the implications of posthumanism within the context of contemporary labor and performance. The inherent exhaustion associated with this seemingly labor-less labor arises from the notion that the non-driver within the so-called driverless train merely references labor that was once physically performed.