This page will allow you to generate your own instructions for performance art pieces in the style of our current exhibit Embodying the Algorithm using GPT-3’s DaVinci model. Each time you refresh this page, a new performance that has been previously generated using GPT-3 will be displayed. If you would like to record and submit your own performance based on one of the generated texts, please see the instructions on our Submissions page.
Refresh Page to Generate a New Performance
Instructions for a performance by GPT-3:
A work of performance art: Performance artist Jillian Mayer eats a cake meant for the birthday of her brother, artist David Mayer, who died in 2012. Credit:Courtesy of Paula Court “I’m sad, but I’m happy to be doing this,” said Mayer, who wore a plaid shirt, a T-shirt from a residency in the Galapagos Islands and a black hoodie with the word “BAD” printed in bold letters. “I’m trying to make a work of performance art around the idea of his birthday.” Mayer’s brother, David, was a performance artist who died in 2012 at the age of 34. He was born on May 29, 1978, a date that meant as much to him as birthdays do to many people. The artist, who distributed photographs of himself with a cake every year, would have turned 39 this year. His work often involved elaborate cakes, such as a birthday cake topped with a toy car and an action figure that he shared with a homeless man. Mayer, who said she has been a professional pastry chef, had already baked and frozen the cake before she decided to make it into a memorial project. “It’s hard to do a tribute to someone who was as much about performance art and ephemera as he was about objects,” she said. The cake, which was made in a green-and-white striped cake mold, was dotted with miniature toy cars and boats. Mayer said her brother loved toy cars and boats. Mayer said she considered eating a piece of the cake and donating the rest to a homeless shelter, but decided to burn it. She was accompanied by her fiance, Chicago-based sculptor Steve Hammer, and the couple’s two dogs, a husky-labrador mix named Daisy and a beagle-basset hound mix named Meatball.