The Blurring Test
performed at: The Brick, Para\\el Performance Space, Roulette
collaborators: Peggy Weil, Varispeed Collective
The Blurring Test
Can you convince your computer you are human? Varispeed performs a new song cycle based on The Blurring Test: Conversations with the online chatbot MrMind on what it means to be human.
From 1998 through 2014, an online chatbot named MrMind administered The Blurring Test, asking simply, “Can you convince me that you are human?” The sixteen years of online conversations, from all over the world, form a human chorus proclaiming our vision of ourselves during a time of significant transition in the relationship between humans and machines. Can you convince your computer you are human?
This new song-cycle is a musical adaptation of the texts by Peggy Weil based on transcripts from conversations between MrMind and humans from around the globe. This suite of eleven songs is scored for voices, electronics and instruments, utilizing the composers’ aesthetic diversity: (opera, art song, folk song, improvisation, synth and drone music, and movement) to highlight the breadth of conversations with MrMind.
Varispeed, working across genres and performance styles, approach this critically important topic through Peggy Weil’s libretto and decades of transcripts. This evening-length concert will be accompanied by projected text compiled and designed by Peggy Weil.
Here is one of the songs co-written with Varispeed Collective and arranged by me:
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