Contemporary economy is both predicted and produced by algorithmic systems that have become auto-generative, incomprehensible, and uncontrollable. By translating the evolution of the NASDAQ into a score performed by a mechanical piano, Hugo Brégeau gives tangible expression to the evacuation of the human from economic processes at the same time as he would have us listen to the instability, increased vulnerability and crisis of finance today. Piano: Zach Lapidus.
Jeff Guess’ performance Ekphrastic Objects, presents the discussion between Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and Samuel Morse in Paris in 1839 of their now acclaimed analogical and proto-digital inventions. In this allegorical demo each of their utterances is visualized by a computer program which introduces an entropy into the their verbal exchange affecting their conversation about realist description, translation, verbal representation of visual forms (ekphrasis), and the relationship between ‘natural’ and formal languages.
Co-sponsored by The French Ministry of Culture and the French Institute and the Ph.D. Program in Theatre, the Graduate Center, CUNY.
