¡Harken! 2023 - Present
¡Harken! is a transfiguration of the flawed and fragmented pieces of history written about Juan Rodriguez – a mixed-race Atlantic Creole who arrived in 1613 from Santo Domingo as a fur trader for the Dutch. In ¡Harken!, Rodriguez’s ghost, wanting desperately to be a real person, asks ChatGPT to tell him more about his life. The AI responds with hallucinations; and distortions based on secondhand accounts written by colonizers and accepted as “history.” Using generative AI, audience prompts, face-swapping, and image generation, ¡Harken! Audiences help Rodriguez re-write his story by ‘feeding’ the AI new information generating new images and landscapes.
Join creators and theater makers Flako Jimenez and Victor Morales for showings and conversation as they navigate the storytelling of Rodriquez amidst the layers of versions of the story while applying the new tools of technology. Does that lead to the excavation of a lost truth or a return to a myth?
¡Harken!, at JACK’s workshop showing, has received Development Support from Onassis ONX. ¡Harken!, at JACK’s workshop showing, has received Development Support from Materials for the Arts.
¡Harken! was commissioned by Governors Island Arts for INTERVENTIONS in 2023 and developed by NYTW Adelphi Residency in 2024. Special thanks to Sterling Swann and The Maiden and The Wolf for development support and Dan Dobson.
WRITTEN, PERFORMED, and CO-CREATED
Directed, Visual Art, and Co-Created by Victor Morales
Projection Design and Technical 3D Artistry by Ker Chen
Lighting Designed by Megan Lang
Set Designed by Henry Pedersen
Production Management by Sydnee Davis
Production Associate and Videography by Roberto Cohetero Flores
Stage Management by Kiara Brown