Jake Elwes
The Zizi Show, 2020
Interactive Virtual Performance
Drag Queens, Drag Kings, Drag Things and Artificial Intelligence…
The Zizi Show (2020) is a deepfake drag cabaret, a virtual online stage hosting a groundbreaking new show with a twist. It features acts that have been constructed using deepfake technology, learning how to do drag by watching a diverse group of human performers. The Zizi Show dissects one of the dominant myths about AI, the notion that 'an AI' is a thing we might mistake for a person.
The bodies in the show have been generated by neural networks trained on a community of drag artists who were filmed to create training datasets at a London cabaret venue closed during COVID-19. During each act audiences are invited to interact with the website and play with which deepfake bodies perform which songs. At times this breaks down when the A.I. tries to conceive impossible positions or combines multiple different queer identities; it can even reveal the skeleton tracking the deepfake is built on. The deepfakes were created collaboratively in celebration, resisting the exploitative and oppressive nature of deepfakes. The Zizi Show constructs and then deconstructs a virtual cabaret that pushes the limits of what can be imagined on a digital stage.
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.
The Zizi Show (2020) is a deepfake drag cabaret, a virtual online stage hosting a groundbreaking new show with a twist. It features acts that have been constructed using deepfake technology, learning how to do drag by watching a diverse group of human performers. The Zizi Show dissects one of the dominant myths about AI, the notion that 'an AI' is a thing we might mistake for a person.
The bodies in the show have been generated by neural networks trained on a community of drag artists who were filmed to create training datasets at a London cabaret venue closed during COVID-19. During each act audiences are invited to interact with the website and play with which deepfake bodies perform which songs. At times this breaks down when the A.I. tries to conceive impossible positions or combines multiple different queer identities; it can even reveal the skeleton tracking the deepfake is built on. The deepfakes were created collaboratively in celebration, resisting the exploitative and oppressive nature of deepfakes. The Zizi Show constructs and then deconstructs a virtual cabaret that pushes the limits of what can be imagined on a digital stage.
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.
About the artist:
Jake Elwes
www.jakeelwes.com | www.zizi.ai | @jakeelwes
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Jake Elwes (b.1993) is a media artist living and working in London. They studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2013-17). Searching for poetry and narrative in the success and failures of AI systems, Jake Elwes investigates the aesthetics and ethics inherent to AI. Elwes’ practice makes use of the sophistication of machine learning, while finding illuminating qualities in its limitations. Across projects that encompass moving-image installation, sound and performance, Elwes seeks to queer datasets, demystifying and subverting predominantly cisgender and straight AI systems. While it may seem like the AI is a creative collaborator, Elwes is careful to point out that the AI has neither intentionality or agency; it is a neutral agent existing within a human framework. Their current works in the Zizi Project explore AI bias by queering datasets with drag performers which simultaneously demystify and subvert AI systems.
Jake's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; TANK Museum, Shanghai; Today Art Museum, Beijing; CyFest, Venice; Edinburgh Futures Institute, UK; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany; New Contemporaries 2017, UK; Ars Electronica, Austria; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; LABoral Centro, Spain; Nature Morte, Delhi, India; RMIT Gallery, Australia; Centre for the Future of Intelligence, UK and they have been featured on TV: ZDF aspekte (Germany) and the BBC Arts (UK). |
