Talos - 2026 (MFA Thesis)

Talos is an immersive, interactive performance exploring liveness, presence, and collective intelligence through generative AI and Persian mythology. Its script draws on the legendary journey of Simorgh, combining mythic encounters with intentional narrative gaps that allow each participant to shape how the story unfolds. Within a theatrical environment, live performers embody and animate the world of the myth, guiding the audience through an encounter with a nonhuman intelligence. Audience members participate by answering questions, making choices at key moments, and interacting with physical controls that influence the unfolding narrative and its visual content. Their contributions also feed a generative writing system that composes a unique poem in real time, which is printed and given to each audience member as a tangible trace of their encounter. The technical workflow connects participant input to contextual prompt generation and AI-generated content, integrating TouchDesigner with LOPs (Local Operators / LLaMA Operators) by DotSimulate to connect language-model capabilities with the performance’s interactive media pipeline. By bringing together live performance, audience co-authorship, generative media, and a printed poetic artifact, Talos investigates how human and nonhuman intelligence can collaborate to create experiences that are personal, ephemeral, and impossible to reproduce exactly.