Hello Hi There uses the famous television debate between the philosopher Michel Foucault and linguist/activist Noam Chomsky from the Seventies as inspiration and material for a dialogue between two custom-designed chatbots: every evening, these computer programs, designed to mimic human conversations, perform a new – as it were, improvised – live text.
As Chomsky and Foucault debate language, creativity, the roots of scientific discovery and the nature of political power, the chatbots talk on and on, endlessly circling the questions of the debate, and frequently veering off into unexpected, at times nonsensical, digressions. Purposely low-tech, the chatbots remind us of the optimism of the late 60s/early 70s, when natural language programming was thought to soon crack the code of human language production. This optimism in the face of repeated failure echoes the dynamic in the politics of Chomsky and Foucault -- reflecting a similarly fading optimism in the possibility of people to remake our world.
From the Szene Salzburg program:
Can you call it a play when two Macbooks are the actors? This unusual performance by NY-based director Annie Dorsen illustrates the extent to which a human can be replaced by a computer. The machines debate human nature and the various facets of human intelligence in a conversation based on the famous discussion from the 1970s between Micheal Foucault and Noam Chomksy. Dorsen uses this material, along with additional text culled from YouTube, the Bible, Shakespeare, the big hits of western philosophy and other sources, to construct computer programs which create a new, "improvised," dialogue. What does humanism, and the belief in human virtuosity, mean when machines and artificial intelligence are able to so easily outdo us? Can something worthwhile come out of the reflections of two computers? Hello Hi There is an intelligent, sometimes scary, creative and humorous dialogue about humanity in the age of its digital reproduction. Theatre becomes a digital art.
Concept and Direction: Annie Dorsen
Production design: Kate Howard
Systems design: Jeff Gray
Scenography and Lighting design: Edward Pierce
Chatbot software design: Robby Garner
Consultation: Nicolas Siepen and Berno Odo Polzer
Assistance: Stephen Brackett
Technical Management: Cyd Cahill
General Management: Lisa Schmidt
Production: VierHochDrei
Co-producers: steirischer herbst (Graz), Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), Black Box Teater (Oslo), PS122 (NYC)
Assoc. for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Toronto: July 25, 2012
EMPAC, Troy, NY: February 18, 2012
Noorderzon Festival, Groningen: August 22-24, 2011
Sommerszene, Salzburg: July 10-11, 2011
Phaenomenale Festival, Wolfsburg: February 26, 2011
PS122 COIL Festival, New York: January 6-22, 2011
Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin: November 18 & 19, 2010
BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen: November 11-13, 2010
Oslo Black Box, Oslo: November 4-6, 2010
Steirischer Herbst, Graz: September 24-26 2010