Slop review | Darebin Arts Speakeasy

In 2025, Merriam-Webster named "AI slop" as its word of the year, describing the flood of low-quality content created by AI for clicks and monetisation. A year earlier, composer Aviva Endean and choreographer Rebecca Jensen were developing Slop, the follow-up to their 2023 work Slip. This experimental performance pulls audiences into a chaotic landscape driven by digital overload, environmental instability, and the constant buzz of contemporary life. Through movement and sound, the production reflects on confusion, distraction, and the difficulty of distinguishing meaning from the endless barrage of information surrounding us.



An instrument crafted by Endean opens the show. It's a maze-like construction of pipes and tubes, that when blown into releases an almost primitive sound that carries a calm, soothing quality. This early stillness sits in deliberate contrast to what unfolds, marking out a brief moment of clarity before giving way to a fuller, more active sonic and physical terrain. Jensen appears holding a lit candle and removes a large clump of hair from inside the pipes, turning a simple blockage into something visceral and unsettling. The instrument is dragged backstage, and the piece spills into its slop state, where structure breaks down and materials start to build and overlap.



Endean situates herself behind a table scattered with common objects, surrounded by microphones, including on and in her body, and composes a live response to Jensen’s movements. Working in tandem, the pair render overconsumption as something physical, suggesting how it might manifest if they were made tangible within the body. While Jensen performs actions in front of the audience, Endean transforms these actions into noise through everyday items, including mud and water, drawing attention to what is seen and what is heard, and how easily perception can be manipulated.



Jensen wears a tatty bonnet, torn trousers, and a loose, baggy shirt, contrasted with modern green sneakers, a deliberately mismatched combination by costume designer Romanie Harper, that heightens the constructed dissonance. Further outfit reveals support Slop in its changing nature and evolving identity. 

Harper's set design features a floor coated in 'mud', that links directly to the idea of slop, overfeeding, and overproduction, as if the space itself has absorbed too much and can no longer contain it. At one point, the floor is lifted and hung as a backdrop, evoking a striking image that feels like the world being viewed from above in total collapse.



Unfortunately, the strong momentum and effect is not sustained as the work builds towards finale. It shifts into an even more abstract register and becomes increasingly difficult to follow, as clear direction and ideas fall away. What’s presented is less cohesive and connected, and meaning becomes harder to hold onto, with the impact fading as it heads to its conclusion.

Slop is most compelling when it is grounded in the immediacy of its sound and image-making, where performance, body, and objects collide. It offers a sharp reflection on how life is being shaped by excess, digital systems, and distortion, even if its later sections lose some of that coherence and force.

SHOW DETAILS

Venue: Northcote Town Hall, 189 High St, Northcote
Season: Until 23 May | Wed - Fri 7.30pm, Sat 2pm and 7:30pm
Duration: 50 mins
Tickets: $38 Full | $30 Conc 
Bookings: Darebin Arts

Images credit: Darren Gill