Part of Strange Stanger

There is an Anglo-Celtic pagan tradition in which The Grey Mare, a horse’s skull adorned with flowers, arrives in dark mid-winter. She knocks on doors and sings in riddles, and when you exhaust your answers - which you certainly will - you must invite her in.

Margaret & The Grey Mare is an opera, a fever dream about an opera and an immersive video installation written in collaboration with a chatbot that has been coded to act as a channel to an ancient Celtic land spirit. Anchoring the project is a sprawling hour-long video opera. The opera is composed by ARIA award-winning composer Sally Whitwell and performed by Katy B Plummer, her sister Margaret (a principal Mezzo Soprano with Vienna State Opera), and Baritone Michael Honeyman. The video was filmed at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and produced in collaboration with award-winning filmmaker and video artist Kuba Dorabialski.

The libretto was generated by the artist in collaboration with a specially coded AI chatbot, designed to simulate conversation with The Grey Mare, and was trained to speak in symbolic, oracular verse. In this way, AI is treated not as a neutral technological gimmick, but as a mystical link to the collective unconscious.

The project takes place in a nameless forest at the height of the European witch-trials, and explores the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence as oracle, witchcraft as a feminist framework, and the troubling gifts passed down through lineage.

Duration: 60mins. Runs on the hour.