¡Harken! is a transfiguration of the flawed and fragmented pieces of his­to­ry written about Juan Rodriguez, a mixed-race Atlantic Creole who arrived in 1613 from Santo Domingo as a fur trader for the Dutch. In ¡Harken! Juan Rodriguez’s ghost, wanting desperately to be a real person, asks ChatGPT to tell him more about his life. The AI responds with hallucinations and distortions based on secondhand accounts written by colonizers and accepted as “history.” Using generative AI, audience prompts, face-swapping, and image generation, ¡Harken! Audiences help Rodriguez re-write his story by ‘feeding’ the AI new information, generating new images and landscapes.

SALON

As part of the salon series Collaboration as Resistance, join Modesto Flako Jimenez, Ker Chen, and Kay Matschullat for a salon style conversation among collaborators and the audience to explore all the layers of collaboration nestled in ¡Harken!, between Juan and the Dutch, Juan and historians, Flako and Juan, Flako, Juan, and AI. Are we excavating a lost truth, returning to a myth or finding a new horizon with the added tool of “intelligent” technology? Salons will be moderated by Jazia Hammoudi and Matthew Niederhauser.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Modesto Flako Jimenez is a Dominican-born, Bushwick-raised, multi-hyphenate artist. As a poet, playwright, educator, actor, producer, and director, his work exists in and explores the intersections of identity, language, mediums, cultures, and communities found in his personal life and beyond. Jimenez’s recent work includes Taxilandia, a site-specific performance in a moving taxi that received a Critic’s Pick from Time Out New York and The New York Times and was recently recognized with an Obie Special Citation Award. Jimenez is the founder of ¡Oye! Group, a nonprofit that serves as an incubator for artists, both native and immigrant to New York City. Jimenez is addressing gun violence as a Public Artist in Residence at NYC Health + Hospitals as part of the NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs’ PAIR program in 2023. Jimenez has been selected as a Princeton Hodder Fellow for 2023-2024. In 2021, Jimenez received a Jerome Foundation Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award in performing arts and theater. Jimenez received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2024. Currently, Jimenez is working on Mercedes, a multi-disciplinary art experience exploring the relationships between matriarchy and ancestors, familial bonds and inherited trauma, and how our own identity can impact our mental health.

Ker Chen is a multimedia artist who signals through creating virtual worlds and producing live experiences. Ker explores myths, fortune-telling, and AI algorithms to capture data points from the future and validate the present. Concerned with the simulation of sensations by endogenous chemicals, Ker strives to find elements of control within the invisible and chaotic aspects of existence, looking inward to the body, outward to the surrounding environment, and beyond to the external world.

Megan Lang has designed lighting at BAM, La Mama, Abrons Arts Center, EST, Under St. Mark’s, the Wild Project, Dixon Place, 59E59, JACK, and Atlantic Stage 2, among others. Recent designs include Help Me Draw Your Feelings (Brick Aux, dir. William Burke+Bryn Herdrich), Now Go and Act Accordingly (Target Margin Theater, dir. David Herskovits), and annually the Ubumuntu Arts Festival in Rwanda. Assistant/associate special effects work on Broadway includes Sting’s The Last Ship, Paradise Square, and Beetlejuice. Learn more at meganlangld.com.

Kay Matschullat originates, produces and directs performances around the globe. She has directed premieres of plays by Nobel prize-winning Caribbean playwright Derek Walcott, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Ariel Dorfman, and Playwright President Vaclav Havel. Other credits include Threepenny Opera, Carson McCullers’ Talks About Love, (nominated for a Drama Desk Award), off-Broadway with composer Duncan Sheik, Echoes of A Thousand Hills with Masharika Theater in Rwanda, Pantomime, Dimetos, and Widows at Williamstown Theater, All’s Well That Ends Well, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and The Skin of Our Teeth. Since founding MAXlive, she has produced the multi-venue biennial festivals MAXlive 2019: A Space Festival, the inaugural MAXlive festival in San Francisco creating collaborations between scientists and performers, MAXlive 2021: The Neuroverse, pushing the limits of intelligence and investigating applications of AI in performance, and MAXlive 2023: Where Is My Body – dance music and immersive performance exploring the changing nature of embodiment. Partners include Carnegie Hall, The Exploratorium, MASS MoCA, National Sawdust, New York Live Arts, The Museum of Science (Boston), California Academy of Science, and Highland Center for the Arts.

Henry Pedersen has recent credits that include design for ¡Harken! (JACK) and Mercedes, Pt. 1 (BAM) and House Management at Powerhouse Int’l Theatre Festival. He works professionally in photoshoot styling work and event design with David Stark D&P and Paramount. In educational theatre, Henry designed Clue and The Drowsy Chaperone at Loyola High School, Power Play in the Park with ASU & Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and multiple productions at the University of Michigan, where he earned his B.F.A. Learn more at @henrypedersenn

Drew Sensue-Weinstein (he/him) is a sound and stage artist whose work draws from a multifaceted artistic background including contemporary and physical theatre, performance art, classical guitar, ambient music, death metal, and more. Drew’s recent work crisscrosses ecological Field Recording with environmental research, personal storytelling, pitched instrumentation, live hydrophone, electronics, spoken word, and ambient screaming. His research focuses on the connections between socioeconomic systems, Earth’s decaying ecosystems, and the decline in our collective mental health. Recently, Drew has designed projects for LA Opera, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, HERE Arts Center, The Goat Farm (Atlanta), Harvard University, Pacific Opera Projects, RIP Space, National Sawdust, and REDCAT. He is currently working on releasing an EP, Dawn in an Appalachian Forest. Drew holds a graduate degree from California Institute of the Arts in Composition and Experimental Sound Practices. He currently lives in Los Angeles but is often bi-coastal between LA and NYC.

Emily Rondon (she/her) is a New York City-based production and stage manager with a BA in Theater from Queens College. Her recent credits include What Became of Us with Atlantic Theater Company (Production Assistant), 3 Rites Performance Series by Delirious Dances (Stage Manager), Downtown Stories with En Garde Arts (Tour Manager), and most recently, Ghetto Hors D’oeuvres by Oye Group (Production Manager).

Ally Cachay Narva (she/her) is a NYC-based stage manager, actor, costume designer, and teaching artist. She is a recent graduate from Hunter College, with a major in Theatre and minors in Media Studies/English and a Certificate in Arts Management and Leadership. She is so grateful to have been part of this team, and hopes you enjoy the show! IG: @allycachaynarva

Neeti Sivakumar is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. With a background in media arts and architecture, Neeti works at the intersection of body, space, and technology, with a focus on interpersonal dynamics. Through iterative and collaborative processes, their practice spans internet art, video games, architectural drawings, and performance. Neeti has received grants from the Goethe-Institut Mumbai, ZKM Karlsruhe, and NYU Tisch Creative Research, and has exhibited work at SPAM New Media Festival, Cooper Union, and NYU. Instagram handle: @neetisivakumar

CREDITS

FUNDING + SUPPORT

¡Harken! is produced by Oye Group, MAX (Media Art Xploration) and Onassis ONX. First commissioned by Governors Island Arts for INTERVENTIONS in 2023, the work was further developed at NYTW Adelphi Residency in 2024 and at JACK Arts in February 2025. Special thanks and extra development support from Materials for the Arts, Sterling Swann, Dan Dobson, and The Maiden and The Wolf.

This production is made possible by Onassis ONX and Onassis Foundation and Oye Group.

SOCIALS