Decipher

Using a bespoke audio-visual system, the work attempts to decode a poet’s live performance in real time.

Because language models struggle to parse spoken word, the hungry machine goes further... mining biometric data, camera feeds, heatmaps, and heart rates to classify and understand the work. In response, the artists use their craft to actively confuse the algorithm's predictions.

By exposing the behind-the-scenes mechanics of automated classification, Decipher turns the poet into an agent of disruption. The performance ends with a critical choice: do we surrender the extracted data to the machine, or do we destroy it?