“The dazzling shows of The Builders Association make just about every other theater company look as if it’s living in the past.” — The New York Times
ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE
I Agree To The Terms is a new virtual performance developed by the OBIE Award-winning ensemble The Builders Association. The interactive online event is being created with a community of Amazon “microworkers” who train the algorithms that shape our online experience. MTurk workers earn from $1 to $100 a day in a vast, unregulated industry. Their assignments are repetitive, boring, maddening, and sometimes disturbing.
In this 45-minute online encounter, broadcast from MITU580, audiences will enter the Builders Marketplace, train with actual microworkers and compete for paying jobs, connecting with the invisible online labor force that shapes our everyday virtual lives.
I Agree To The Terms is best experienced on a computer or laptop with Zoom, and a mobile device (smartphone or tablet). Please purchase your tickets in advance; each interactive performance is limited capacity, and ticket sales will end 4 hours before the advertised show time.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
The Builders Association is an NYC-based, cross-media performance company. They use the richness of new and old tools to extend the boundaries of theater, telling original stories that examine the impact of media on various cultures and communities. Founded in 1994 by Marianne Weems, The Builders’ work is made by a core group of collaborators that includes Moe Angelos, Dan Dobson, James Gibbs, David Pence, Lawrence Shea, Austin Switser, and Jennifer Tipton, in addition to hundreds of collaborators across creative disciplines. thebuildersassociation.org
CHEAT SHEET
• We love a new lens on labor practices & the insidious ways monopolies shape our everyday lives – sustainability & workers’ rights are urgent concerns for the futures of live performance.
• After almost 2 years of Zooming, The Builders Association’s cross-media innovations are all the more timely – how has live performance evolved to meet the needs of the moment?
• This is audience participation like you’ve never experienced before – get ready to work!
MEET THE ARTISTS: OFFICE HOURS
Since this performance is virtual, we won’t be doing a traditional post-show talk – instead, join us online at 7PM on Wednesday, March 30 for a behind-the-scenes conversation with Marianne Weems and James Gibbs of the Builders Association, Clay Shirky (NYU) & Turkers/Collaborators Adah Deveaux, Noel Castle, Sybil Lanham, & Michelle Brown. RSVP HERE.
NYU DEPARTMENT CO-SPONSORS
Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement, Interactive Media Arts (IMA), Tisch Art & Public Policy, Tisch Drama, Tisch Performance Studies
SUPPORT
NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible with support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and by Howard Gilman Foundation, Collins Building Services, Consolidated Edison, Harkness Foundation for Dance, DuBose & Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund, New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and Marta Heflin Foundation, as well as our valued donors through memberships and commissioning fund support.