The Placeholders is a 20-minute performance piece about meaning-making in the age of monopolistic social media platforms, AI-generated content, and instant-consumption information.
Three performers are on stage. One of them dances. Another films them. The third sits at a computer, extracting still images from the live camera feed, one at a time. Each captured image is immediately projected onto the back wall of the stage, randomly juxtaposed with an image from a curated image bank, providing a dual-image backdrop for the happening.
Within this simple yet intricate setup, the three performers continuously negotiate with one another and with the technology they operate (or are operated by). The audience is invited into the intimacy that grows among them, and called upon to make sense of the sequences and shifting narrative permutations that emerge. Performers and viewers alike risk the collapse into utter nonsense or absolute truths, while enchanting this risk with unpredictably poetic moments, humour, and glimpses of sense. They improvise meaning on the spot, then naturally let it go as a new one surfaces and shifts their perspective.
In the contemporary digital flood of images, much of the content we encounter is random, unprocessed, not created by a human. As a result, one either laments the loss of meaning and the apathy that follows, or turns to obsessing over making reel-length, potentially lethal sense out of everything.
The Placeholders choreography tries to offer an improvisational method to intellectually and emotionally survive this flood. Even when seemingly incoherent, the audience and performers never fail to assume connections- to the point of doubting whether the images are random at all. Some viewers become convinced that the entire sequence of images was preplanned, others think a sophisticated algorithm approximates the closest bank image to the captured image, and others are simply unsure. This perpetual questioning of the logic behind the images makes the audience hyperaware of their interpretive tendencies, insisting on them staying actively engaged. It highlights the pattern recognition that happens—before any algorithm—inside our heads.
Performance History:
28 July 2025
Manifold, a Computational Arts Staff Show following the Computational Arts Alumni Residency. St. Hatcham's Church. Goldsmiths, University of London.
London, UK.
16 January 2026
No End to the Road, a Kulturforum Witten Fellowship exhibition. Märkisches Museum Witten.
Witten, Germany.
Note: this work is in ongoing development. Our goal is to develop it into an evening-length piece (40 mins). Please contact me at liamaozbergman@gmail.com if you’d be interested in hosting this performance.