Practitioner
Ezra Reaves
Co-creator, The Program (San Francisco Neo-Futurists)
Interviewed 20 July 2026, 11:00 AM — inside the unrecovered window
Works The Program (2021, with Amy Langer) · Compton’s Cafeteria Riot
Experienced for this research The Program, 20 July 2026
This page is provisional until Ezra Reaves has reviewed it for error. That undertaking was given at the outset of every interview and it stands.
Liveness earned by automation
The piece is a long automated phone tree that resolves, at the end, to a live operator. Breadcrumbs left in your answers are passed to that operator. One participant described reaching the human as emerging from a cave into daylight — a payoff only available because everything preceding it was mechanical.
False starts as design
He is fascinated by false starts and describes the piece as a practice in patience: you have to work to get to the person at the end. Some people terminated early. Those who gave themselves over to an infuriating ride arrived at an open-hearted stranger who wanted an irreproducible moment of connection.
What people tell a machine
He was surprised by how vulnerable people were. When the beep came and callers were prompted to leave a voicemail, it functioned as therapy. He connects it to anonymity: you are assigned a name, nobody knows who you are.
Cruelty to the system
Asked whether people were cruel to the automated voice the way they are to Siri — and whether Trapman-O’Brien’s caretaking effect appeared here too — he confirmed both, and identified himself as the kind of participant who wants to break the experience and reward the underbelly.