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THE ILLUSIONISTS

R&D Documentation

1st phase June 2023, JW3, London

Directed by Melissa Chambers

Written by Melissa Chambers, Erez Drigues, Anna O'Donoghue and Iftach Ophir

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the story

In 2002 two Israeli psychologists won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Over a volatile, funny and remarkable 35 year friendship, Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky established a science of decision-making under uncertainty. Their work on ‘optical illusions of the mind’ formalised a science of being wrong, establishing a field of behavioural psychology that today, has changed the world.

The Illusionists, based on the biography by Michael Lewis and Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, will capture a live audience in Kahneman and Tversky’s lab. Staging a collaboration from opposite sides of the grave (Tversky did not live to see their Nobel awarded) and using audience participants as subjects of study, this innovative new project aims to create a shared interactive space were people can reflect on the fallbility of their own thinking. Part biography, part experiment, part history of 20th century Israel, this show is an exciting live portrait of a friendship that changed our minds.

We don't study artificial intelligence, we study natural stupidity

AMOS TVERSKY

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