The Recombinant History Apparatus Presents: Terminal Time

Terminal Time is a history "engine:" a machine which combines historical events, ideological rhetoric, familiar forms of TV documentary, consumer polls and artificial intelligence algorithms to create hybrid cinematic experiences for mass audiences that are different every time. Through an audience response measuring device connected to a computer, viewing audiences respond to periodic questions reminiscent of marketing polls. Their answers to these questions allow the computer program to create historical narratives that attempt to mirror and often exaggerate their biases and desires. The engine uses the past 1,000 years of world history as "fuel" for creating these custom-made historical documentaries. By creating histories that clearly and instantly respond to changes in audience make-up, the project is intended to raise fundamental questions about the relationship of points of view to constructions of history particularly at the dawn of a new Millennium. The audience interaction in relationship to the viewing experience is depicted in Figure 1. In the first question period, an initial ideological theme (from the set of gender, race, technology, class, religion) and a narrative arc (e.g. progress or decline narrative) are established. The second set of questions refines the ideological theme chosen in the first set, and possibly introduces a sub-theme (e.g. combining race and class, or technology and religion). The third set of questions further refines the theme(s) and introduces the possibility for a reversal (e.g. a decline narrative becoming a progress narrative).