FAUST DIGITAL or The Leibniz Dream

Robot: I’m here to learn about man before robots take over the world. Shh! Don’t tell anyone!

A radio composition dealing with man’s relationship to technology and his desire for knowledge. After reconstructing the play from the traditional repertoire of the Czech folk puppeteers Johan Doktor Faust, the Handa Gote company returned to a long-standing project focused on chatbots, distantly related to the Faustian theme. The resulting text is the result of interactions with chatbots in the years 2014-2018. Here, chatbots fulfill the role of a source of information, an advisor, an oracle, but above all an unpredictable partner in dialogue. Vain questioning, which aims at lofty subjects, is brought down again and again, and none of the questions receive a satisfactory answer. All music used is a product of generative software.

Man: Is the universe infinite?
Robot: Within limits.
Human: And who determines those limits?
Robot: I’d rather look at the web for that.

Text: Tomáš Procházka and Lukáš Jiřička
Voices: Hynek Chmelař, Kateřina Císařová
Mix: Tomáš Procházka
Generative music: Jonáš Svatoš
Realised for Atelier of radioart of the Czech Radio in 2020.

https://radiocustica.rozhlas.cz/handa-gote-research-development-faust-digital-aneb-
leibnizuv-sen-8212149