Philip Speakman

The Road That Eats Thoughts
live role play performance
1 hour
7 - 9pm, 21st February 2025

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Commissioned by Chemist Gallery, and curated by Rebecca Edwards and Chemist Gallery, as part 'Conversations with AI'.

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A cold February night in 1998. Four friends on holiday in the English countryside are driving back to their accommodation after witnessing a catastrophe at an English village where a ritual tradition, successfully performed yearly since the Civil War, ended this year in disaster. Haunted by what they have seen, the friends set off into the night, navigating dark country roads. But as dense, monotonous forests scroll past their windows, a road to elsewhere starts to emerge.

The Road That Eats Thoughts invites the audience to watch as these four “players” surreal narrative unfolds. The work explores our evolving relationship with artificial intelligence and the myths and magical thinking endemic to popular understandings of these complex technologies. Blending live projections, audio design, and interactive storytelling, the work delves into the societal and epistemological consequences of algorithmic feedback loops, information silos, and the unsettling phenomenon of AI “hallucinations”; where machines generate inaccurate yet convincingly real outputs. By mirroring our interactions with and the processes behind AI within the structure of the story and its participatory elements, the work interrogates how these technologies shape human decision-making prompting audiences to confront themes of agency, user choice, and the uncanny digital doubles produced by a world increasingly shaped by AI-driven systems and data simulations.

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With thanks to the participants Rachel Irons, Billy Sassi, Danny Pagarani and Joe Moss, voice over acting by Jack Solloway, and Kineret Lourie, Ariel Caine and Rebecca Edwards for the opportunity and support.