Aguebao

Aguebao explores the value of human identity, especially gender, as commodified by data. Originally conceptualized as a 15-min performance and installation under Gender Bender 2019, Aguebao uncovers how our present relationship with technology reveals more than we intend to about ourselves while neither realizing how much we’ve given away consensually nor creating an image that is an accurate representation of who we are.

At the core of Aguebao are conversations between two cis-gendered men somewhere in cyberspace, struggling with the concept of modern masculinity. One of the characters, a data professional that fits the present defintion of 'woke', mines user level data to build products. The other, an overgrown man-child who’s given up on the idea of understanding the opposite gender, collaborates with the former to create a mobile app that can accurately predict a person’s gender using a few 'inputs'. What the two discover through their process of tinkering, experimentation and building the app reveals far more about the intersections of technology and gender than what they'd originally expected.

The project was also selected to be a part of Reconnect - Online Theatre Festival (Iran) and is slated for a full-length production in 2020.