sent(i)ence - Marcus Round
Player and Passivity / Card-based Narrative / Human-AI Interaction / Self-Verification / Casino Experience
Words by Tim C 7th Sep 2025
sent(i)ence (2025), Marcus Round, Medium: Immersive interactive performance game. Courtesy of Marcus Round and Purist Magazine.
A single lamp and a vivid red bow tie illuminate the table. Five empty seats are filled by the Dealer, who then invites two members of the audience to join the chain of play. At the centre of each card is no longer a traditional symbol, but a fragment of text—a partial sentence. Chips are redefined as connective words. Whether it is Club A [trusting my gut] or Spade 2 [one more time], phrases become the only anchors of memory. The intuitive sensibility carried by language stands in stark contrast to the rational competitiveness demanded by gambling. At Marcus’s table, competition dissolves; both humans and machines acquire flesh and feeling.
Yet a subtle layer of power lingers over the table. Marcus sets the rules: the order of play, the AI reference cards, and even the constant demands that players prove they are “human.” Verification might take the form of a distorted CAPTCHA, or the absurdity of a “two-factor authentication”—for instance, being compelled to recite with emotion the phrase: “I am afraid of dying.” Only after such elaborate rituals will the AI begin to complete the unfinished sentence.
Sent(i)ence offers its audience a semi-illusory agency: suspended between collaboration and passivity, between self and other, between human and machine.
Yet a subtle layer of power lingers over the table. Marcus sets the rules: the order of play, the AI reference cards, and even the constant demands that players prove they are “human.” Verification might take the form of a distorted CAPTCHA, or the absurdity of a “two-factor authentication”—for instance, being compelled to recite with emotion the phrase: “I am afraid of dying.” Only after such elaborate rituals will the AI begin to complete the unfinished sentence.
Sent(i)ence offers its audience a semi-illusory agency: suspended between collaboration and passivity, between self and other, between human and machine.
Marcus Round is an artist and a Creative Technologist.
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