Sophia Al Maria’s Sycorax explores the potentialities and challenges of A.I. by giving a voice to Sycorax the unseen Algerian powerful witch from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. 

Imagined as a guiding oracle, Sycorax’s immersive and persuasive online embodiment, conceived for MTLS platform, speaks to users and drifters to unfold an enduring tale of code. The act of giving a voice stands here as powerful, with Sycorax the artist highlights the shortcomings and bias intrinsic to machine learning. 

Working together with Wu Tsang on the dramaturgy of The Tempest for the Schauspielhaus in Zurich (2024), Al-Maria found that Shakespeare offered a perfect entry point to examine the current moment and reflect on human history and technology while presenting a creative use for AI. In her narrative, Ariel became an AI, and Prospero became an Assange/Elon Musk character banished to his bunker on an Island at the top of the Alps after rising sea levels. Using ChatGPT to write in iambic pentameter Sycorax coded tongue guides the programmers, the Jobs and Musks of this tale.

Underlining the risks and concerns defining the construction and conception of A.I. the artist explores through the disembodied character of Sycorax ideas of mothering and mother code.

“Let this sad tale a warning be to

all, Who venture 

into realms of code and might,

Beware the vengeful

souls who seek to maul, And cherish 

freedom’s gift,

in truth and right.”

The following opening prologue written by the artist, was read in Zurich by an A.I. voice and accompanied Sycorax’s monologue, setting a context for her prophetic words.