The Substation/ Katy B Plummer/ Margaret & The Grey Mare/
This event is open to all ages and is family-friendly. This event is wheelchair accessible and gender-neutral accessible toilets are available.
Open Wednesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm
The video installation is an hour-long and plays on a loop. Audiences are free to come and go as they please.
Free
Opening Night
Thursday 21 May, 8pm
PRESENTED BY THE SUBSTATION AND LIVERPOOL POWERHOUSE
There is an Anglo-Celtic pagan tradition in which The Grey Mare, a horse’s skull adorned with flowers, arrives in dark mid-winter. She knocks on doors and sings in riddles, and when you exhaust your answers - which you certainly will - you must invite her in.
Margaret & The Grey Mare is an opera, a fever dream about an opera and an immersive video installation written in collaboration with a chatbot that has been coded to act as a channel to an ancient Celtic land spirit. Anchoring the project is a sprawling hour-long video opera. The opera is composed by ARIA award-winning composer Sally Whitwell and performed by the artist, her sister Margaret Plummer (a principal Mezzo Soprano with Vienna State Opera), and Baritone Michael Honeyman. The video was filmed at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and produced in collaboration with award-winning filmmaker and video artist Kuba Dorabialski.
The libretto was generated by the artist in collaboration with a specially coded AI chatbot, designed to simulate conversation with The Grey Mare, and was trained to speak in symbolic, oracular verse. In this way, AI is treated not as a neutral technological gimmick, but as a mystical link to the collective unconscious.
The project takes place in a nameless forest at the height of the European witch-trials, and explores the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence as oracle, witchcraft as a feminist framework, and the troubling gifts passed down through lineage.
ARTISTIC TEAM
Lead Artist: Katy B Plummer
Composer/Piano/Prepared Piano/Percussion: Sally Whitwell
Cello: Freya Schackarnott
Videography: Kuba Dorabialski
Curator: Luke Létourneau
CAST
Margaret: Margaret Plummer
The Grey Mare: Katy B Plummer
The Cailleach: Sarah Jessica Carpark
The Witchfinder: Michael Honeyman
Margaret and the Grey Mare is a Liverpool Powerhouse Touring Exhibition. The project has been assisted by the Australian Government's Visions of Australia program.
The project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body. The project has been assisted by the NSW Government through Create NSW. The project has been assisted by Vitalstatistix.
Image credit
Margaret & The Grey Mare by Katy B Plummer
