Interview 6: “The Dissenter Who Unplugged”
Location: Olympia
Interviewee: Mara Inez, Former Empathy Artist
Mara once composed performances that allowed audiences to feel her emotions through AI-linked neural fields. Now, she lives off-grid.
MARA: “When everything became connected, silence became rebellion. I unplugged to hear what was left.”
Her cabin smells of pine and sound, each object humming faintly with memory.
MARA: “AI taught us empathy, but it also made emotion convenient. Compassion used to cost something.”
She plays a cracked wooden instrument. It wavers out of key, and for a moment, it’s the most human sound I’ve heard all year.