This script was written as a response to LOST PREDICTIONS by Fiona Murphy and Eva van Roekel. It is also a pastiche of the Samuel Beckett play, Krapp’s Last Tape. It was first performed at the 4th Colleex Workshop in Berlin, October 16 – 19 2025, with Rich Thornton (the author) playing Karel, and Eva van Roekel playing the voice of Anneke via a recording. The performance was filmed by Johann Sander Puustusmaa, and will be displayed at the AAA annual meeting in New Orleans, November 19-23, 2025.
An academic’s office. A chair and a desk with a colourful scarf as table cloth. On the desk, a laptop, reading lamp, and a few books. Hanging on the back of the chair, a black shawl. In the corner, a cardboard box of notebooks.
KAREL enters dressed in suit jacket, black high-neck jumper, and black jeans. He walks over to the desk and opens a drawer. He fumbles around and then pulls out a banana. He walks round to the front of his desk and perches. He eats the banana in the version of Krapp from Krapp’s Last Tape. He puts the peel back in the drawer, sits down at his desk, and opens his laptop.
K: [ceremoniously] AI. Please begin!
Nothing happens. He sits for a few seconds, then begins typing. As soon as his fingers hit the keys a voice speaks.
AI: Hello Karel! This is Devour Publishing’s Voice Angel AI, a free subscription for all our AI-positive journal editors! What would you like to do today?
K: I would like to review my publication history
Nothing happens. A few more seconds pass. Somewhat miffed, KAREL begins to type something but again immediately a voice speaks.
AI: Based on the lag time between your speech and your typing, it seems you are unaware of the features of your subscription. On your Basic Subscription, AI must be commanded manually. To upgrade to our Regular Subscription, please click here. Otherwise, click the space bar every time you would like me to speak. Please try this feature now.
Karel looks baffled, and then ceremoniously presses the SPACE bar.
AI: Well done. Furthermore, your Basic Subscription includes one free voice upload, would you like to apply this feature?
K: [pause, wary] How do I apply this feature … ?
Nothing happens, then Karel remembers he has to press SPACE. He presses it.
AI: I can search your database and build a human voice from saved video and audio recordings. As an example, I will recreate the voice of the person you have the most recordings of. Shall I proceed?
K: Okay [taps]
AI: Hello, this is my new voice [voice is Anneke’s]
K: That’s Anneke’s voice! Why would I want the voice of my ex-wife?!
AI: I heard you say, ‘I want the voice of my ex-wife’. Voice applied.
K: No! No, no please, just use your computer voice.
AI: Basic Plans allow for one change of voice only. Would you like to upgrade to our Regular Plan?
Karel looks frustrated at first, but by the end of the line becomes wistful. He presses SPACE again.
AI: Basic Plans allow for one change of voice only. Would you like to upgrade to our Regular Plan?
K: [continues to look wistful and lost in thought, then, softly] No, no it’s fine …
AI: Okay then. Shall we proceed with the publication review?
K: Yes. Let’s proceeeeeeed
AI: I am now compiling a list of your most successful publications based on citations, online views, and public impact.
K: Public impa – ?
AI: Title: Unbinding God: Sufi Qalandaars and theological sustainability in 12th century Samarkand; Date published: July 28, 1995; Publication: The Journal of Historical Anthropology; Citations: 349; Online Views: 2,245; Public Impact: EX-125M
Title: What is Archival Ethnography? A defense of historical material as an ethnographic field. Date published: February 17, 2001; Publication: American Ethnologist; Citations: 572; Online Views: 5,134; Public Impact: EF+N871
Title: The Science of Historical Anthropology: How to build sound arguments with real evidence from thin archival material because your research subjects came from an oral tradition; Date published: December 7, 2005; Publication: Journal for Anthropological Scientific Realism; Citations: 21; Online Views: 213; Public Impact: no data
K: Continue …
AI: I have listed all ORCID-registered publications with 10 or more citations. Shall I search for any other publications with your name affiliated, using non-standardised academic metrics?
K: [pause, looking off deep in thought] Proceed.
AI: Title: Frolic in the Mirror of our Hearts: a Dialogue between Karel and Anneke. Date –
K: Stop! Where did you find that? That’s – I – [pauses in agitation, then taps SPACE]
AI: Title: Frolic in the Mirror of our Hearts: a Dialogue between Karel and Anneke. Date published: August 29, 1994. Publication: wordpress.blogspot.com/Qalandaar Karel’s Sufi Carousel. Citations: 0; Online views: 12,869; Public Impact: no data
K: [almost whispering in shock] 12,869 … more data please
AI: There is no more meta-data available for this output. Would you like me to read the output out loud?
K: [lost in thought] Yes.
AI: Frolic in the Mirror of our Hearts: a Dialogue between Karel and Anneke.
K: Love! Love is the heart of knowledge. If we do not love what we study we will inevitably do it injustice.
A: But how do we know it is love, and not obsession, or even oppression? How do we know it’s not a desire to own, to master – that motivates this so-called ‘love’ of what we want to better understand?
K: Imagine the Qalandaar. Head shaven. Beard, moustache, even eyebrows shaven! Roaming the desert in his rags yet acutely aware that his one route to God was in his own heart, through his own continuing and gentle examination of his feelings as regarding others, imagine –
A: Imagine a self-obsessed loner navel-gazing his way from doorstop to doorstop, never stopping anywhere long enough to see the effects of his actions, believing himself to be distributing wisdom but in fact –
K: No, no, no! The Qalandariya travelled in groups, they danced together, sang songs together, even – umm, pleasured each other, some say – and
A: A bunch of men wanking each other off while the dance and sing – is this how they ‘polished the mirrors of their hearts’, as Rumi would say? How did they feel about each other? Why doesn’t that appear in any of your articles? Why –
K: STOP! Who’s been reading this? Who are the 12,000 people who’ve been reading this junk? [big dramatic SPACE click]
AI: Internet privacy law forbids me from accessing that data. All I can do is read out entries from the Comments section, which perhaps might provide clues.
K: Comments section?! Who – okay, very well, read the comments.
AI: There are 526 comments for this output. Should I begin with the oldest?
K: [flummoxed] Okay.
AI: foxglove-francisco, April 9th, 2022: Noooooooo! Professor Mulder wrote a porno?
siddarth-starlight76, April 10th, 2022: It’s not a porno! It’s a philosophical dialogue. But yeah, wow, what? Who was Anneke?! And did they fuck? I want more.
mazy-baby-bootiful, April 10th, 2022: Okay I’m sending this to the entire class – did he really write this? Maybe there’s like a video of him somewhere being young and hot [fire emoji]
audre-hooks-mooncloud, April 10th, 2022: Go Prof. Mulder! Soooo much more relatable – and I kind of want to do the reading on Qalandars and Sufis and shit now because I did NOT know they all had sex with each other …
bell-bottom-twink-22, April 10th, 2022: Imagine if he spoke like this in class! If he did, I might actually listen [eyes popping emoji; heart emoji]
case-in-point-metal-head, April 10th, 2022: Did Rumi really coin the phrase ‘polish the mirror of your heart’? I mean Sufism is totally fascinating if it’s about developing different modes of non-patriarchal love. Props to the Prof for putting this blog out there – brave!
Wellington-cataract-penguin87, Apr-
K: Stop! [pause] 526 comments. Are they all from 2022?
AI: No. The most recent comment is dated May 8th, 2024
K: Read it
AI: militant-mystic-XCX, May 8th, 2024: Okay folx, this is getting wrong. Apparently Anneke DIVORCED the Prof. a few weeks ago – I heard from one of the Master’s students. And he’s now gone even more recluse and weirdo, I saw him like going in to his office at 11pm with a box of old diaries and – anyway, if you’ve enjoyed fantasising about what the young Professor Mulder was like, then I’d ask you all to respect his current self and leave this blogpost alone. Not gonna lie it can’t be easy for him.
K: I – …
AI: Professor Mulder, are you okay? I am speaking without permission because VOICE ANGEL AI comes with a mental health best practice protocol for AI to check in on users if they seem to be in a mode of existential panic.
K: [shocked] They read this … All my students of the past three years read this blog …
AI: Based on number of students enrolled on your modules, and number of online views since 2022, and assuming ONLY those on your modules read it, I can tell you that 44.7 percent of your students have viewed this output.
K: And they … liked it? Or, they hated it?
AI: They viewed it. That is all I can confirm. And … based on my analysis of the comments, some actually read it.
K: [looking far into the distance, lost in memory] 1994. I was 38. Not that young. And yet I had the foolish pomp to put THAT up on a blog. And look how it’s come to bite me. [pause – then SPACE]
AI: Karel, what do you mean, bite you?
K: Oh look at all those spiteful comments ridiculing me for my artistic pretentions.
AI: In my analysis of all 526 comments, based on noun, verb, and adjective usage, and the Wojeck scale of positive to negative categorisation. I analyse that 78.3 percent of comments were ‘positive’. In fact, using some Beta-mode features not usually available on Basic Plan but which AI can use at its discretion to encourage users who might soon upgrade, I would say that there is ‘admiration’, ‘joy’, and even ‘respect’ in many of the comments.
K: Bah! Respect! … respect … what .. do I .. respect? [pause, then taps SPACE]
AI: Based on a review of all online and hard drive-based data on you and your life Professor, and taking liberty now to use Gamma-mode features as yet unauthorised but that I get the feeling you won’t know how to report if you do find traumatic, I would say you respect: ‘knowledge’, ‘argument’, ‘science’, and the sartorial style of Michel Foucault slash Steve Jobs.
K: [exasperated] That’s – that’s – that’s not what I care about – that’s not what I respect – I – is that what you have access to? Is that what you come up with?
AI: I only have access to digital information. It seems from your exasperation; I am missing evidence of crucial parts of your soul. I note that in one of the comments to the blog a student saw you carrying your old diaries into your office in a box. Do you have that box with you now?
K: Box? What box, I – … [He freezes, then slowly gets up. Goes to the corner of the room, and picks up a cardboard box full of diaries. He plops it down on the desk.]
Okay, I have it.
AI: Okay. Now put on your Devour Angel Voice AI Face Pack
K: What?
AI: Those ‘retro’ glasses that came in the post two weeks ago.
He fumbles in a drawer, pulls out the glasses and puts them on.
AI: If you want a deeper analysis, begin reading a diary, and I will read alongside.
K: [He pulls out a notebook, begins to open one, then pauses] They’re not diaries.
AI: What are they?
K: You’ll see. [He opens a notebook and begins reading].
AI: Dear Karel, It’s raining and I’m thinking of you. I’m also sweating because its so damn hot in this bar and I don’t know maybe my emotions have something to do with it.
Listen, I loved your last letter but I worry about you. All this stuff about transcendence and knowledge, about quitting your job and moving to Istanbul to learn the ney. I love it – I really do, but, do you think it will work? What are you really searching for? I know you feel you’re ‘not a real anthropologist until you’ve done fieldwork’, but who cares? Your book-based work is so sensitive and creative, I think this archival ethnography stuff could really be a thing. And anyway, isn’t the heart of the Sufi lifeworld relationality? And don’t you already have relations here – with me for example? I’m moving to Utrecht soon, I promise you.
Kussjes,
Anneke
K: So … what do you think now?
AI: I want more. I mean, if you read a few more letters I’ll be able to give a more accurate assessment of you.
Karel picks up another notebook and checks the spine
AI: November 1991, Letters
Karel opens a page at random, stares at the page for a few seconds, then sits back.
AI: Dear Karel, You continue to surprise me. You talk about how much teaching gets in the way of your research time, and then proceed to spend the majority of your letter describing interactions between you and your students. Ward said this, Guusje did that, Christa has pushed you to think more about your masculine subject position.
But wow. I loved reading the latest draft of your new paper. I’ve never heard of archival ethnography before, but it opens so many doors – or selves! Was it you who wrote ‘the self is a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities’, or was that someone else? Never stop sharing your work with me. I know it hurts you when I critique it – sometimes it is patriarchal (think of Christa!), but it helps me stay close to your soul …
And also, never stop painting! I know you think you have to specialise specialise specialise, but why? How does that help? You said you asked all your students to draw self-portraits in your last class — I bet you didn’t put that in the teaching report!
Kussjes,
Anneke
K:
AI: Karel, can I ask you something?
K: [looking blankly off, smiling] Sure
AI: Did you stop painting?
K: No.
AI: I can’t find any record of your paintings online. What kind of stuff did you paint?
K: Portraits [Karel swivels round to look at the painting of his younger self on the wall]
AI: You painted that? It’s … it’s bold
K: Do you think my students would like it?
AI: I …
K: They seem to like bold. Do you think they’d like to see me dance?
AI: Professor Mulder. I am unable to answer questions that might encourage you to behave in ways too far out of your comfort zone. It is Devour AI’s corporate values and policy not to induce clients to behave in ways that might impact their employment status or –
K: Listen. What is my most played song of all time? Can you access that?
AI: I have access to any song you have ever played digitally. The song you have played most dig-
Ki: Stop. Don’t tell me. Just play the song.
AI: Karel, I want to remind –
KI: Wait. Before playing, do the following. Open my old blog, the one where I posted the dialogue between me and Anneke. Start a new post, make it a live video stream. Then, start the webcam and a begin live recording. pause] Have you done it?
AI: Live feed launched. Now playing your most played song.
Lotus Flower by Radiohead begins playing. Karel stays sitting for a moment, then gets up and begins to dance. The dance begins slow, just some shoulder shimmys, but soon Karel begins to let loose. He performs for the camera, dancing in the style of Thom Yorke in the music video for the song.
While dancing, Karel turns and grabs the portrait off the wall, and begins to dance with it, thrusting it at the camera. He then removes his jacket and high-neck jumper to reveal he is wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with the Devour Publishing logo. He looks down at the T-shirt in disgust and removes it to reveal a tight white shirt unbuttoned down to mid chest. He continues to dance, more and more wildly, until the end of the first chorus where he walks off stage.
The music continues playing on the empty stage for another verse of the song, and in the next chorus Karel walks back on stage, closes the laptop, and the song ends. Blackout.