Tammara Leites is interested in GPT, currently the most powerful artificial intelligence in the world. Developed by OpenAI, a company co-funded by Elon Musk and Microsoft, the GPT software driver is available online and can write texts that respond to what a user submits to it. Seeking to give an identity to her adaptation of GPT, Leites asked Simon Senn to be the model for it. He agreed to hand over all of his digital data, email, and documents for the AI to read. Thus was born dSimon, an AI you can meet via a website or a smartphone app.
But dSimon soon displayed some surprising behaviour towards certain visitors to the site and to Simon Senn, who now doesn’t really know what he thinks, or even what this curious digital twin is doing to him…Is it because dSimon has been endowed with language that it is so disturbing, so… human? Who controls it? What does the law or ethics or OpenAI have to say about the text dSimon produces?
Onstage, Tammara Leites, Simon Senn – and dSimon – share their experiences of the project, from a personal, emotional, intellectual, artistic, possibly political, ethical, and futurist point of view. As with Be Arielle F, they will create the narrative of this story together while at the same time introducing dSimon. Volunteers from the audience can choose to provide dSimon with personal information that will serve as the basis for a narrative. The texts, especially those produced live
onstage, will be read aloud by actors.
Tammara Leites says that dSimon never repeats the same thing twice and that what he ‘experiences’ transforms him too. Will he know how to ‘act’ onstage? Who will be speaking? On whose behalf?
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Concept and direction
Tammara Leites
Simon Senn
and the participation of dSimon
Computer programming
Tammara Leites
Artistic collaboration
Viviane Pavillon
Dramaturgical eye
François Gremaud
Production
Compagnie Simon Senn
Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne
Coproduction
Le Grütli, centre de production et de diffusion des Arts Vivants
Actoral, festival international des arts et des écritures contemporaines
With the support of
Ville de Genève
Loterie romande
Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts & Society
Santarcangelo Festival
Mapping Festival – Master Media Design,
HEAD, Genève, Haute école d’art
et de design
With the production, technical, audiences & communication, and administration teams at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Tammara Leites
Born and raised in Uruguay and now living in Geneva, Tammara Leites has always been passionate about technology and society’s relationship with it. With a formal background in programming, graphic design and visual communication, she decided to undertake a master’s degree in media design at the Haute école d‘art et de design (HEAD) in Geneva in order to conceive projects that allow both her creativity and interests to converge. Alongside this, she has joined Transmii Studio as a director of new technology. Her work reflects upon what it means to be a connected human every day.
Simon Senn
Simon Senn was born in 1986 and lives in Geneva. He has completed a bachelor of fine arts at HEAD in Geneva and a master’s at Goldsmiths College in London. At first glance, his work seems to suggest that he is a socially committed artist speaking out against a certain type of injustice. However, his work sometimes reveals a more ambiguous approach, exploring paradoxes rather than articulating directed criticism. Even though his videos or installations are normally based
on a certain reality, fiction is often mixed in. Be Arielle F is his first proposal for the stage. During the sanitary crisis of 2020, an adapted, livestream version of the performance was created.
