What happens to autonomy in a reality managed by algorithms?

The Idea

Your Mind, Girls… explores the implications of an algorithm-controlled society on individual autonomy. Inspired by Ntozake Shange's "Liliane," (adapted with permission) and set in the near future, the performance features a live actor and digital avatars interacting and in conversation with one another - creating a compelling dialogue around freedom and control in a technologically mediated world.

Ntozake Shange understood that the body is the site of knowledge, memory, and resistance. This insistence on embodied knowledge provides a crucial framework for considering how emerging technologies, like mixed reality, challenge our very understanding of what it means to be human. In a world increasingly mediated by technology, particularly systems that can capture and manipulate information, Shange's work compels us to question the implications for our autonomy and self-determination. Your Mind, Girls… uses mixed reality to delve into this tension, examining how technology might both augment and potentially erode the fundamental connection between our bodies, our knowledge, and our freedom to define ourselves.

(in order of appearance)

Liliane - played by a real flesh-and-blood person; Liliane is African American, much older, and is dressed appropriately for work in a painting studio - plainly, but still elegant. Liliane has lived for a long time. She is an activist and an artist. She’s been engaged in her life and has learned things along the way. She sees the challenges of our times and of our technology. She is not afraid. She is a bit angry. She would call it realistic

Cookie - a digital character; Liliane’s avatar, originally when Liliane made her Liliane named the avatar “Cookie” with some irony and disdain, but now Cookie is just part of Liliane’s life, a digital character that basically represents Liliane’s idealized self projected; Cookie is in her fifties, African American, idiosyncratically stylish, elegant. Note that Cookie and all other digital characters are human-scale (i.e. the same size as real-life Liliane)

Young Liliane - a digital character who represents Liliane in the early 1970s, and who is seen in memories of Liliane’s sessions with her therapist; Young Liliane is in her early 30s, dressed consistently with Cookie, but from an earlier era.

Psychoanalyst - a digital character, a psychoanalyst living on the Upper West Side in the 1970s embodying the intellectual and cultural ferment of the era. They are a product of their time, shaped by the social and political changes of the 1960s and 70s, yet also a timeless figure, dedicated to the timeless pursuit of understanding the human psyche.

Liliane (Dawn L Troupe) is the only human actor on stage. Cookie, Young Liliane and the Psychoanalyst were developed through motion capture of performances by Tẹmídayọ Amay (Young Liliane), Kineta Kunutu (Cookie), and Robert M Johanson (Psychoanalyst), who originated the characters.

The avatars are actual 3D avatars who perform in the space, interacting and in conversation with Liliane and with each other

The Characters

The Story

Your Mind, Girls... is set in the near future. When we meet Liliane she is nearly 100 years old. Because of environmental degradation and war, humans spend all their time inside. Technology is keeping us alive. This future-present reality consists of physical things and digital things. Some have been born into this new reality and some come from the "before times". There is little resistance, particularly from those who have been born inside.

Now, the algorithms that manager the new and present reality are harvesting the memories of those who lived before for data to inform the design and build of future humans.

Technical Specifications

Audience Response*

"I was invested emotionally"

"The conversation between her younger self and the (therapist?) really drew me in."

"The play's irony is that it is visceral despite being mediated."

"Thank you, it was a very cool experience and very human!"

"It successfully evoked a dreamlike environment"

*From Post-Show Survey April 2025