BLACK SWAN IN THREE VARIATIONS

(collaboration with Adam Hogan)

4K video still from installation, HayArt Cultural Center, Yerevan, Armenia; 1:01:00, dimensions variable

Drawing from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s timely and relevant book from his Incerto Series, “Antifragile,” and the notion that individuals can gain from the impact of highly improbable events, this triptych and evocative score offer three meditations on a selection of black swan events, including 911 and its aftermath, the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and collapse of the global financial market, the sinking of the Titanic, and the recent rise of ChatGPT. The score draws from an array of speeches by political figures, AI experts, and members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and explores perceived randomness and variability through algorithmic electroacoustic composition and granular synthesis.

A garden hose in the first display that gradually fills a large vessel with water, where the black swan chaos soon unfolds, is a nod to Brecht’s alienation effect. This unconventional chronometer marks the duration of the work, migrating the viewer between the scenarios that evolve in the second and third displays, and the one that unremittingly keeps time.