What could a theatrical script possibly have in common with genomes and artificial intelligence computer programs? Prescribing, guiding, dictating and instructing: they belong to the domain of authoritative texts. From their lifeless pages, play scripts determine the configurations of moving, breathing performers. DNA strands contain the symbolic makeup of what and how to make a brand new you, and AI programs instruct the loyal and infallible computer to run a sequence of operations. Yet what makes these scripts peculiar is how they distinguish themselves from other “instructive texts”, such as IKEA manuals, self-help books or cake recipes: they are scripting for something non-designated, unpredictable, self-perpetuating and by all appearances, autonomous.
This article presents a project in performative writing which falls into this proposed category of “blind scripts”, and contemplates agency as a potential product of its open ended design. The text in question, entitled “Rosa + Lawrence Were Here”, is a scripted dialogue between two lovers. Written with the intention of being “run” like programming code, or “expressed” like genes through the iterability of performance, the script cumulatively generates a simulation of autonomy that may provide a useful contrast to originary theories of the human agent.
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