ORACLE | Łukasz Twarkowski

“ORACLE” moves across decades. It shines a light on visionaries who changed the course of history. From science to war, from algorithm to intuition, from the thirst for knowledge to the anguish for peace, from human to machine, from presence to absence, it ultimately celebrates those who dare to imagine another world and break boundaries, without hesitating to pay the price of their courage.

What does Alan Turing (1912–1954), the mathematical genius who foresaw the world of computers and artificial intelligence and broke the German Enigma code during World War II, have in common with Hedy Lamarr, the Hollywood star whose rare beauty is reflected in Disney’s Snow White, but also an inventor who paved the way for modern wireless communications? What connects the medium Helen Duncan, who brought spiritualism to the fore, with Blake Lemoine, the dismissed Google engineer who raised the question of consciousness in artificial intelligence?

Shifting between post-war Britain and a timeless digital realm, “ORACLE” employs thermal and infrared cameras—not neutral video tools, but first and foremost weapons of war. At the same time, through immersive soundscapes and cinematic projections, it dissolves the boundary between reality and illusion. Visually striking and conceptually provocative, the performance reflects on Turing’s secrets, his prophetic insights, and the future shaped by artificial intelligence that he helped imagine, placing it alongside forgotten stories and biographies that haunt the margins of the official historical account.

Twarkowski explains that the title of his immersive multimedia theater performance is inspired by Turing himself and refers to the notion of the oracle: “He called one of his imagined machines ‘the oracle,’ a figure of possibility. You could say Turing was an oracle too, someone who saw something that others couldn’t yet imagine. Maybe the oracle is the thing that tells the truth and gets ignored.”

“ORACLE” delves into chillingly accurate predictions about the future and into the dark side of technology that is already shaping our lives. A constantly shifting revolving stage, music that stirs you, and cameras that bring out every breath, every heartbeat of the characters in the performance by the Polish visionary of contemporary theater, who emphatically calls out to us: “The future is here.” A production by Dailes Theatre.