Entangled
This is a performance that examines peculiar relationships. It does so, in part, by putting you – the audience – in a peculiar relationship with the work, by inviting you to experience it in this disused office space, and by asking you to wear headphones and a radio tuned into a unique broadcast, but there is more concerning relationships here…
This project began with a focus on the societal impact of algorithmic programming; we wondered how algorithms were changing our relationships to the world and to each other, primarily through our ubiquitous use of smart phones. For our purposes, an algorithm is defined as “a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem solving operations, especially by a computer” (OED). This definition begs numerous questions, especially when applied to societal concerns; for example, who invents the rules? Who invents the criteria for how rules are decided upon? How are these sets of rules ‘followed’? How are these processes affected by the fact they are solved/operated by computers? Under the logic of neo-liberal society, we’ve become familiar with the idea that algorithmically driven machines are replacing physical labour, but we have not yet come to grips with how algorithms are starting to replace intellectual, social, even emotional labour, and thus profoundly affecting our relationships with each other and with our world.
The initial title of the project was Algorithmyth, and after two workshop presentations of this work at the University of Waterloo’s Quantum-Nano Centre in 2014 and 2015, the focus on algorithms gave way to a related but more revealing phenomenon found in quantum entanglement. In quantum physics, entanglement refers to particles that become permanently dependent on each other’s properties, even at impossible distances. Einstein called this “spooky action at a distance.” The layering of this relational concept with algorithmic programming became the central focus for our project, and as such we began to consider the paradox of our social worlds becoming increasingly intertwined with that of algorithmic methods which mediate our every day lives: from stock market high frequency trading to Amazon purchases, and from Netflix film and television viewing to online dating.Entangled is a story about relationships - person to person, person to system or formula or algorithm. As we approach the technological singularity, when machine intelligence equals and then exceeds human intelligence, it seems to us that we must investigate the nature of these relationships.
Finally, in the staging of this contemporary narrative about algorithmic entanglement, we wanted to ensure that we did not lose track of the deeply mythical nature of the relationships examined in our work. The political and historical dimension of our research into algorithms and quantum entanglement kept yielding powerful metaphors of humanity’s relationship with nature. At the beginning of the rehearsal process for the performance you are about to experience, designer and scenographer, Paul Cegys suggested we work with the imagery of Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the Little Mermaid. The patterns of water flow, water pressure, and sea tides had captured Cegys’s imagination in previous versions of this project, but it soon became clear that the development of this additional relationship between Andersen’s narrative and our contemporary world of algorithmic programming would yield a deep connection to the yearning in humanity to transcend our mortal condition. In a peculiar way, the Little Mermaid brought us back to a primary concern of this project, to do with the mythical quality and reach of power, and as such I welcome you now to become entangled in this deep-yet contemporary-mythology.
