Zizi in Motion: A Deepfake Drag Utopia
Jake Elwes
A silent video series consisting of life-size deepfakes of a range of London drag performers. How can we as a queer community subvert deepfake technology, using it in an ethical and consensual way to celebrate queer bodies? Everyone involved in the project has power over their own data and involvement as well as all being part of the same community. In this piece forms are re-animated by drag legend Wet Mess who’s improvised movement causes the AI to beautifully break down and fail, imagining an alternate queer utopia for AI.
The Zizi Project (2019 - ongoing) is a collection of works by Jake Elwes exploring the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and drag performance. Drag challenges gender and explores otherness, while A.I. is often mystified as a concept and tool, and is complicit in reproducing social bias. Zizi combines these themes through a deepfake, synthesised drag identity created using machine learning. The project explores what AI can teach us about drag, and what drag can teach us about A.I.
Series of 21 / full drag cast: Baby Lame | Bolly-Illusion | Bourgeoisie | Cara Melle | Charlie Wood | Chiyo | Dahc Dermur VIII | Dakota Schiffer | HERR | Lilly SnatchDragon | Lavinia Co-op | Luke Slyka | Mahatma Khandi | Mark Anthony | Me The Drag Queen | Miss Terri Boxx | Oedipussi Rex | Ruby Wednesday | Sister Sister | TeTe Bang | Wet Mess
Credits
by Jake Elwes
Movement by Wet Mess
Series of 21 / full drag cast: Baby Lame | Bolly-Illusion | Bourgeoisie | Cara Melle | Charlie Wood | Chiyo | Dahc Dermur VIII | Dakota Schiffer | HERR | Lilly SnatchDragon | Lavinia Co-op | Luke Slyka | Mahatma Khandi | Mark Anthony | Me The Drag Queen | Miss Terri Boxx | Oedipussi Rex | Ruby Wednesday | Sister Sister | TeTe Bang | Wet Mess
Jake Elwes
Jake Elwes (b.1993, UK) is an artist, hacker, radical faerie and researcher living in London. Across projects that encompass moving-image installation, sound and performance, Jake’s work finds unusual ways of demystifying, mapping and subverting technology. Their work searches for poetry and narrative in the successes and failures of digital systems. Works include deepfake drag in The Zizi Project, glitching oppressive algorithms in Machine Learning Porn and reframing AI generated marsh birds back into nature in CUSP. They have been making art exploring the aesthetics and ethics of machine learning systems since the very first generative AI models in 2016. Jake’s work also calls for us to challenge who builds these systems and for what purpose, and whether we as artists and queers can reclaim these technologies to build our own digital utopias.
Jake studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2013-17) and their work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Somerset House, London; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Frankfurter Kunstverein; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Honor Fraser Gallery, LA; Fundacion Telefonica Museum, Madrid; Ars Electronica, Austria; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Sculpture in the City, London; Science Gallery Dublin; RMIT Gallery, Melbourne; Onassis Foundation, Athens; E-WERK Freiburg, Germany; Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin; Nature Morte, Delhi; Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge and they have been featured on ZDF aspekte, ARD ttt (DE), BBC Radio 4 Front Row, and BBC1’s Kill Your TV - History of Video Art (UK).
