Algorithm’s Embrace
Jun’24 – Present
Performance, Computational PoetryTalk
Gray Area, San Francisco
First performed at Gray Area, Algorithm’s Embrace: Queer AI, Poetic Machines & Alien Belongings intersects AI, identity, and the concept of “home”. It re-scripts “home” as an indeterminate drag performer rather than a place or a destination. Starting with my personal journey from Lebanon to Paris, London to Sao Paulo, Toronto and San Francisco, the performance reflects on how names, identities, and belongings shift across borders. Mirroring the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the digital medium becomes a space to examine how home can vanish and reappear as a mutable entity. The work engages viewers in an interactive web experience that draws on the migrant experience, questioning how “home” and identity are both lost and rediscovered in the digital landscape.
Queerness and adaptability are illustrated by the chameleon metaphor—migrants and queer individuals alike must continuously adjust their presentations to fit into diverse social or cultural environments. The piece emphasizes how AI, like the chameleon, reshapes identity by reflecting and hybridizing human voices, turning poets and artists into makers of new digital spaces. The audience confronts their own identities and assumptions about “home” and queerness in the digital world through interactive interfaces powered by socket.io .
The piece introduces Whomp, an AI model trained on my and other queer writers’ poetry. Whomp embodies a fragmented “queer consciousness”. AI here is reconceived not as a tool but a collaborator, extending human voices beyond physical borders and temporality. This interaction positions AI as a means to create communal, resilient spaces in a digital world often governed by isolating technologies, inviting participants to “home” themselves—asserting agency and defining their sense of belonging.