Program Note:
'Click Farm' explores how our digital world is becoming overrun with click bots that are attempting to mimic human behaviour to drive traffic to websites. This perceived increase in engagement with the sites generates greater advertising revenue. We have reached a point now where there is so much online activity from bots that other malware bots are incorrectly identifying bot behaviour as normal, and human behaviour as fraudulent, thereby creating a feedback loop of bots observing and interacting with other bots, without human involvement. Bizarrely, this activity generates billions of dollars in the economy without creating anything of value.
Through a process of observation, variation and mimicry, the musicians perform a feedback loop of ideas that gradually mutate, taking the listener from the familiar waltz-like gestures of the opening sections into an active and unfamiliar landscape where only hints of the initial gestures remain.
'Click Farm' was commissioned by Ensemble Offspring for their 2019 Noisy Women Award. Special thanks to Claire Edwardes, Jason Noble, Lamorna Nightingale, Veronique Serret, Zubin Kanga and Blair Harris for contributing their creativity and artistry to the development process.
