Singulars: Performing the Reverse Turing Test
Proposal Type
Individual Talk
Location
Algorithms & Imaginaries
Start Date
July 2026
End Date
July 2026
Abstract
Singulars is an ongoing series of performance systems in which I co-create poetry with a language model trained on an anthology of English poetry alongside my own writing. Across three works—carnation.exe, versus.exe, and reinforcement.exe—I stage live reinforcement loops in which my poems and the model’s responses compete for audience votes. The audience functions as an embodied feedback mechanism, shaping the evolution of both the machine and the human poet in real time.
This paper examines what happens when a poet becomes both author and training data. Drawing from creativity research, metacognition, and social cognition, I reflect on how authorship shifts under conditions of algorithmic co-production. Performing inside an acrylic booth, I observed how narrative and gesture reassert themselves when textual authority becomes unstable. Small material acts—folding tape, arranging paper, pacing—became cognitive anchors within a saturated feedback loop. Audience response suggested that spectators attend not only to linguistic output but to visible labor. They wanted to see a human thinking.
Through iterative duels, I identified a persistent limitation in generative systems: difficulty with conceptual adjacency, the subtle transition that links metaphor to emotion. To remain distinct, I had to reach toward vulnerability and lived specificity. The performance became a reverse Turing test. The task was not to identify the machine, but to remain recognizably human.
Singulars proposes AI co-authorship as a live laboratory for understanding how embodiment and emotional risk recalibrate creativity under supervised and unsupervised conditions alike.
Singulars: Performing the Reverse Turing Test
Algorithms & Imaginaries
Singulars is an ongoing series of performance systems in which I co-create poetry with a language model trained on an anthology of English poetry alongside my own writing. Across three works—carnation.exe, versus.exe, and reinforcement.exe—I stage live reinforcement loops in which my poems and the model’s responses compete for audience votes. The audience functions as an embodied feedback mechanism, shaping the evolution of both the machine and the human poet in real time.
This paper examines what happens when a poet becomes both author and training data. Drawing from creativity research, metacognition, and social cognition, I reflect on how authorship shifts under conditions of algorithmic co-production. Performing inside an acrylic booth, I observed how narrative and gesture reassert themselves when textual authority becomes unstable. Small material acts—folding tape, arranging paper, pacing—became cognitive anchors within a saturated feedback loop. Audience response suggested that spectators attend not only to linguistic output but to visible labor. They wanted to see a human thinking.
Through iterative duels, I identified a persistent limitation in generative systems: difficulty with conceptual adjacency, the subtle transition that links metaphor to emotion. To remain distinct, I had to reach toward vulnerability and lived specificity. The performance became a reverse Turing test. The task was not to identify the machine, but to remain recognizably human.
Singulars proposes AI co-authorship as a live laboratory for understanding how embodiment and emotional risk recalibrate creativity under supervised and unsupervised conditions alike.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2026/algorithmsandimaginaries/schedule/6
Bio
Halim Madi is a Lebanese computational poet and performance artist working between electronic literature, embodied theater, and machine learning systems. His trilogy Singulars explores live reinforcement loops between human and model, staging poetic duels shaped by audience feedback. His work has been presented at CounterPulse, Gray Area, CultureHub LA, and international festivals focused on art and technology. Madi’s practice investigates migration, authorship, and the psychological implications of co-creating with AI, treating performance as both experiment and ritual.