PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art | 2021
Performing Big Data: Alan Lomax and The Folk-Song Science
Abstract
A t first glance, computers are at odds with live performance. The cold predetermined logic of the algorithm would seem to negate the spontaneity valued by artists and audiences in even the most scripted and rehearsed productions. My purpose, in structuring most of my operas and audiovisual works around computational concepts, has been to heighten this incongruity into a theatrical tension that speaks to a distinctly contemporary condition. On one hand, algorithmic processes have become increasingly internalized, often determining what people think, do, and want in the world; on the other hand, there is still something—call it a classical sense of free will, or perhaps simply the friction of particular bodies and voices—that resists such automation. This was the kernel of previous works such as I/O (2006) and BOTCH (2013), where vocalists interact with each other and with machines according to rules cannibalized from computer programs, customer service protocols, and voice recognition devices.