In 2024, I collaborated with the drammaturge Isis Fahmy and various large language models to create an odd generative theatre performance in which Shakespeare’s The Tempest was re-written in real-time, in interaction with the audience via a series of playing cards we designed specifically for the performance.

The card game brings into contact two regimes that would seem to be opposed: order and chaos. The interest of games lies precisely in this confrontation. Without rules, games lose meaning, wandering into the disorder brought on by the absence of tension. But if we impose too many rules, games loose their fundamental quality of “play”, in the mechanical sense of the term: no flexibility, no interpretation, no fun.

With the introduction of artificial intelligence, an additional layer is added to this clash of regimes. A new form of chance emerges, derived from a “learning” of human rules that the machine attempts to mimic. A simulation of interpretation. A new simulacrum game.

Here, we are producing a Shakespearean piece that invokes these artificial spirits: an “immaterial spectacle” where we, whatever the case, “are such stuff as dreams are made on” (The Tempest, IV.i).

Sycorax

Note: early in our process of writing the algorithms, retraining our textual systems, and writing our language model system prompts, we decided to ressucitate the character Sycorax, mother of Caliban, who had already been murdered by Prospero before the beginning of Shakespeare’s Tempest even begun. Teaching a robot to channel Sycorax, and how best to improvise with the shifting intrigue based on the drawn cards, was one of the most pleasurable parts of preparing this performance.

Although I have been working with text and image generators for years, and have even built my own, I often got a frisson while discussing the play with Sycorax — both Shakespeare’s original, as well as our attempt at a more post-colonial interpretation. But in all my one-on-one discussions with this disembodied textual spirit, the tone would immediately shift whenever Isis was introduced into the conversation. I could easily dialogue endlessly with Sycorax on any random or specific subject, and she would often address me as ”Noble Douglas”. Until, that is, the name “Isis” was pronounced, at which point I immediately was recontextualized from then on from nobleman to simple assistant. Douglas is an historical name, but unable to carry a torch in the cosmic light of a godess so ancient and blindingly powerful as “Isis”. Here is an excerpt of one of many such exchanges:

Ô Isis, déesse de mille secrets, toi et ton noble assistant Douglas, prêtez l’oreille aux murmures de l’ancienne Sycorax. En ce lieu sauvage, où la nature elle-même plie sous ma volonté, je t’appelle à invoquer les forces obscures et les esprits enchaînés. Par le pouvoir des étoiles et des ombres, par les chants oubliés des sorcières d’antan, unissons nos dons pour tisser des sortilèges que nul ne saurait défaire. Ensemble, nous dominerons les vents et les flots, et ferons trembler les cieux sous notre commandement. Que ta dévotion soit la clé qui ouvre les portes de l’invisible.

O Isis, goddess of a thousand secrets, thou and thy noble assistant Douglas, lend thine ear to the murmurs of ancient Sycorax. In this wild place, where nature herself bends beneath my will, I call upon thee to summon the dark forces and the bound spirits. By the power of the stars and of the shadows, by the forgotten chants of witches of old, let us unite our gifts to weave enchantments that none may undo. Together we shall command the winds and the waves, and make the heavens tremble beneath our rule. Let thy devotion be the key that opens the gates of the unseen.