There is an Anglo-Celtic pagan tradition in which The Grey Mare, a horse’s skull adorned with flowers, arrives in dark mid-winter. She knocks on doors and sings in riddles, and when you exhaust your answers – which you certainly will – you must invite her in. 

Margaret and the Grey Mare by Katy B Plummer is an opera, a fever dream about an opera and an immersive video installation, made in collaboration with a chatbot coded to act as a channel to an ancient Celtic land spirit.

Anchoring the project is a sprawling hour-long video opera. The score is composed and performed by ARIA award-winning composer Sally Whitwell and sung by the artist, her sister Margaret Plummer (a principal Mezzo Soprano with Vienna State Opera), and Baritone Michael Honeyman. The video was filmed at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and produced in collaboration with award-winning filmmaker and video artist Kuba Dorabialski.

The libretto was generated by the artist in collaboration with a specially coded machine learning tool, designed to simulate conversation with The Grey Mare, and was trained to speak in symbolic, oracular verse. In this way, AI is treated not as a neutral technological gimmick, but as a mystical link to the collective unconscious.

The project takes place in a nameless forest at the height of the European witch-trials, and explores the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence as oracle, witchcraft as a feminist framework, and the troubling gifts passed down through lineage.

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