Margaret and The Grey Mare

Anchoring the project is a sprawling hour-long video opera. The opera is composed by ARIA award-winning composer Sally Whitwell and performed by the artist, her sister Margaret Plummer 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.