Circuits of Sand and Water (Dramaturg)

Circuits of Sand and Water is an immersive headphone theatre installation/performance by Prachi Khandekar. I have been working as Dramaturg on the project to develop the text, technology and audience engagement.

This submission represents a public prototype of the performance testing the relationship between headphones, objects and environments at Wimbledon College of Art.

The project explores the wager of privacy in pursuit of data-driven utopias. It examines the foundations of AI, a technology that's built on information mined from bodies and beings.

Spectators enter an apartment and piece together the story of its resident: a woman who watches neighbours from her window during the pandemic. Her desire to analyse the neighbours is complicated by her innate empathy. She finds herself unable to function like an algorithm, and questions whether this makes her superior or inferior to the technologies built to serve us.

The installation resembles an open-world game, in which you can collect snippets of the protagonist’s monologue by interacting with objects in her home. As you navigate deeper, you will hear what it’s like to be a human stuck between animal instincts and digital impulses.

Developed with support from Canada Council for the Arts and CALQ.

• https://circuitsofsandandwater.com/