Discrepancies

Featuring a lone human performer against a tide of geometric performing objects and a chorus of indifferent puppeteers.

Discrepancies submerges the audience in a series of meditations about our dependence on technology, the allure of blind faith, and the question of whether participation is even a choice.

Three meditations were developed from Jan 2015-Jan 2016: Frames, The Web, and Bits.

In the fall of 2015, as I was driving around in my truck, wondering whether I should apply for St. Ann’s Puppet Lab, NPR reported that a math problem called the Erdos Discrepancy had been solved by a computer.

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The deviation of a situation from the state one would like it to be in.

Discrepancy Theory Wikipedia

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Humans had been trying to do so for nearly a century. My inner computer nerd’s heart just about stopped when they revealed that the proof is so long, a single human could never check the computer’s work.

Therefore, we find ourselves at an impasse in the forest. If a computer observes a tree falling, can anyone prove that it truly fell? This computer gave us the answer to an otherwise unsolvable problem, but can we trust it? Can one trust a machine? Do we have any choice? I decided to create an analog meditation on this snowballing and terrifying relationship with digital technology. As a puppeteer I felt clear that I could, with simple geometric objects, perform seduction, addiction, obsession, power, lack of control, and invisibility. All sensations, experiences, or drives that describe the human-computer condition. The Erdos Discrepancy is an abstract puppet show inspired by theoretical math.

Developed in collaboration with Sarah McMillan and Amanda Friou.