Private Screening is a seriocomic performance lecture on black boxes, machine learning, and Bitcoin mining. Initially delivered in synthetic character, my vocal veneer of artificiality gradually disintegrates to eventually reveal my own voice speaking as myself. The piece is concerned with how formalized and technical language functions as a shield for the tech sector, used reflexively to evade ethical implications.

The piece was commissioned by the City of Chicago and premiered as part of the Goat Island Archive exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center. It was written as a creative response to the final Goat Island work The Lastmaker (2007).

In the following video, the beginning of the piece is truncated and is rendered with subtitles; sound kicks in at 0:37.