Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin
CatGPT is a modern freak show as Robin Wealleans wheels out his re-animated cat L3NT1L. Having passed away some years ago, Wealleans embodied Dr Frankenstein on a meandering and fretful path to somehow bring his beloved cat back into his life. After some unsuccessful taxidermy attempts, more than a few years of mechanical tinkering and around $60,000 later… Wealleans has in some way played god. Having the bones of the kitty built into a machine that houses multiple robotic moving parts and all functions with an artificial intelligence written and educated by Wealleans himself.
Wealleans doesn’t seem like the kind of person that did any performing before his presentation of L3NT1L to audiences internationally at conferences and Fringe festivals. It’s a feat of technical ingenuity, creative brilliance and moral ambiguity. He’s a cheery guy and is obviously very much in love with his creation, a love I’m sure was in similar measure for his cat when it was alive, and he doesn’t shy away from talking about it. My experience of this show was perhaps marred a little by just how much talking about the cat there was and how little playing with it happened.
This is the unhinged version of the show which was only on for one night. Since it’s an A.I. that has been populated with possible outcomes and given a way to think and react it can pretty much say anything. Naturally, restraints are put on A.I. so they won’t say anything anything, as an example you’ll notice ChatGPT won’t answer the question “Is there a god?” directly because that particular A.I. has been taught very strictly not to answer that question and instead to provide examples of what other people think.
The unhinged night was the 9pm showing in the Te Auaha cinema theatre and was the only performance that had L3NT1L shirk their censoring restraints. This A.I. was free to say anything- as raunchy or problematic as it may turn out. However, the audience didn’t seem too keen on getting the weird stuff out of the weird thing. It seemed to me that a lot of the fellow audience were very much cat people and were interested in how L3NT1L felt about dogs or perhaps what L3NT1L would do if A.I. took over. I was a little desperate to ask questions like what do you think of Elon Musk’s Salute the other day or How do you feel about David Seymour trying to drive the jeep up parliament steps but it didn’t seem like anyone else in the crowd was on the same vibe. It was the one time in my entire career where I kinda wished there was a group of loud teenage boys in the crowd.
Wealleans explained the purpose of his piece very close near the start of it: remember your loved ones. Tell stories about them and in the telling you let them live on. The last time anyone tells a story about someone, or recalls their name or how they were, that’s when they truly die. I thought it curious for him to open with lines about the show as a whole, instead of letting us reach that conclusion ourselves, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense. Once he gets going he really can just keep going. The show was scheduled for 90 minutes but I left at minute 105 with no end in sight.
Walking out of Te Auaha as Wealleans had just finished a completely tangential story about someone he knew that named goats after Wealleans and his sister only to visit and find the goats having sex with each other, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. I also feel a little childish for being disappointed, considering my disappointment stems from not being able to make another person's cherished pet say swear words. But having to look back I feel something different now.
Anyone there would tell you that it was a hot night; audiences fanning themselves with what they could get, people asking for cups of ice from the bar, it was not exactly comfortable in the cinema theatre that night. There wasn’t even much of the A.I that we saw… we only asked the cat maybe 5 or 6 questions across 105 minutes. However Wealleans has such a sweet magnetism because of the love he so obviously oozes for his best friend.
CatGPT won’t be boasting the best showmanship but it might just take out most dedication to another living thing. I think it’s a wonderful, empowering testament to loving your pets, how much joy they bring people, and how important they are. Even when it was 15 minutes overtime when we left most of the crowd was still there, soaking it all in. You will almost certainly never see anyone else attempt anything like Wealleans has and for these reasons alone you should go along and see the freak show. More details in the season that was here.
This is the unhinged version of the show which was only on for one night. Since it’s an A.I. that has been populated with possible outcomes and given a way to think and react it can pretty much say anything. Naturally, restraints are put on A.I. so they won’t say anything anything, as an example you’ll notice ChatGPT won’t answer the question “Is there a god?” directly because that particular A.I. has been taught very strictly not to answer that question and instead to provide examples of what other people think.
The unhinged night was the 9pm showing in the Te Auaha cinema theatre and was the only performance that had L3NT1L shirk their censoring restraints. This A.I. was free to say anything- as raunchy or problematic as it may turn out. However, the audience didn’t seem too keen on getting the weird stuff out of the weird thing. It seemed to me that a lot of the fellow audience were very much cat people and were interested in how L3NT1L felt about dogs or perhaps what L3NT1L would do if A.I. took over. I was a little desperate to ask questions like what do you think of Elon Musk’s Salute the other day or How do you feel about David Seymour trying to drive the jeep up parliament steps but it didn’t seem like anyone else in the crowd was on the same vibe. It was the one time in my entire career where I kinda wished there was a group of loud teenage boys in the crowd.
Wealleans explained the purpose of his piece very close near the start of it: remember your loved ones. Tell stories about them and in the telling you let them live on. The last time anyone tells a story about someone, or recalls their name or how they were, that’s when they truly die. I thought it curious for him to open with lines about the show as a whole, instead of letting us reach that conclusion ourselves, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense. Once he gets going he really can just keep going. The show was scheduled for 90 minutes but I left at minute 105 with no end in sight.
Walking out of Te Auaha as Wealleans had just finished a completely tangential story about someone he knew that named goats after Wealleans and his sister only to visit and find the goats having sex with each other, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. I also feel a little childish for being disappointed, considering my disappointment stems from not being able to make another person's cherished pet say swear words. But having to look back I feel something different now.
Anyone there would tell you that it was a hot night; audiences fanning themselves with what they could get, people asking for cups of ice from the bar, it was not exactly comfortable in the cinema theatre that night. There wasn’t even much of the A.I that we saw… we only asked the cat maybe 5 or 6 questions across 105 minutes. However Wealleans has such a sweet magnetism because of the love he so obviously oozes for his best friend.
CatGPT won’t be boasting the best showmanship but it might just take out most dedication to another living thing. I think it’s a wonderful, empowering testament to loving your pets, how much joy they bring people, and how important they are. Even when it was 15 minutes overtime when we left most of the crowd was still there, soaking it all in. You will almost certainly never see anyone else attempt anything like Wealleans has and for these reasons alone you should go along and see the freak show. More details in the season that was here.