Under the glow of a flickering screen, a daughter reconstructs her deceased father. Pixel by pixel, contradiction by contradiction. 2021 is a live performance where theatre, AI, and video-game storytelling converge, blurring the boundary between human remembrance and machine logic. An audience member steps into the role of Brian, an unhoused veteran reliving his final weeks inside a looping digital hospital: a labyrinth of corridors, bureaucratic dead ends, and fleeting human contact. Guided by his daughter’s narration, fragments of data become playable memory. Each decision glitches reality a little more. How do we provide dignity in death to those we fundamentally disagree with? Part elegy, part experiment, 2021 exposes the tenderness and terror of digital resurrection. It asks not whether machines can think, but whether memory itself is a kind of simulation. Note: 2021 includes flashing lights, audience participation, violence, crude language, references to war, racism, and sexism. Participation and active spectatorship is a central part of 2021.
Audience Role
Participation and active spectatorship is a central part of 2021.
Ages: 16 +
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About Guilty by Association
Guilty by Association (GbA) is an interdisciplinary performance framework that shifts its process with each new project, conspiring with an ever-expanding network of collaborators from far-out disciplines and faraway places. Currently led by Cole Lewis and Patrick Blenkarn, we seek to expand what theatre can do, devising work from design ideas, exploring modes of storytelling, and scheming to fuse media to the stage. Previous members included Lauren Dubowski, Nicholas Hussong, and Masha Tsimring.