In 1814, Laplace postulated a super-intelligence that could know the positions, velocities, and forces of all the particles in the universe at one time, and for all times. This proposal is often referred to as Laplace’s Demon.

Inspired by Cornelius Cardew’s graphic scores and the Fluxus sound poems, ‘Negotiating Laplace’s Demon’ aims to explore similar ideas with open rules for performers. Renewed with the language that links human with machine, the ‘instructions’ and ‘notations’ are written to fall in the spectrum between open and close, improvisation and control, randomness and sequence. The scores also narrate the points of interest in information history—how digital language has evolved, and key discoveries that support or disprove determinism.

Exhibition
Part of God is Meditating: Still, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 15th January - 19th February 2022
Photo by Simon Mills