Join us for a live (online) discussion with the artists and curator of the Edinburgh Futures Institute’s and The Edinburgh International Festival’s co-presentation – The New Real.

The New Real is a digital art exhibition that aims to build awareness and understanding of the ways data systems and artificial intelligence reflect and shape our social reality. The New Real artworks were developed with EFI. Creating a deeply valued, rich and multidimensional relationship between artists and researchers they are part of a wider programme of projects being developed by EFI.

The Zizi Show is an artwork by Jake Elwes. Made in collaboration with a community of drag artists, it constructs and deconstructs ‘deepfake’ performers using cabaret and musical theatre to challenge narratives surround AI and society.

The ‘AI drag artist’ Zizi is a ‘deepfake’ clone of human drag performers – a virtual body, developed by training a neural network on filmed footage using machine learning.

Drag challenges gender and explores otherness, while AI is often mystified as a tool and contains social bias. The project explores what AI can teach us about drag, and what drag can teach us about AI

Curated by Drew Hemment, Chancellor’s Fellow and Reader for the Edinburgh Futures Institute and Edinburgh College of Art, The New Real will be available online at newreal.cc from 8 March and is supported by the University of Edinburgh, Ars Electronica, Creative Scotland, Creative Informatics, and the Data-Driven Innovation programme of the South East Scotland City and Region Deal.

Event Details

Artist Jake Elwes is on a mission to challenge discrimination and champion queer and drag artists in The Zizi Show. Through drag performance, this artwork aims to use cabaret and musical theatre to challenge narratives surrounding A.I. and society. Is representation always a good thing? Do you want to be represented in the dataset? Join us to explore the politics of AI and drag.

Chaired by Briana Pegado FRSA, Creative Director of Fringe of Colour Films

Panel:

Jake Elwes, Artist

Me, Drag Artist

Morgan Currie, Lecturer in Data and Society, University of Edinburgh

Dr Drew Hemment, Curator, Edinburgh Futures Institute

About Edinburgh International Festival

Edinburgh International Festival is the world’s leading performing arts festival, featuring the finest performers from the worlds of dance, opera, music and theatre. Created in 1947 to celebrate the human spirit, the International Festival normally serves as an annual cultural exchange, every August, for an international audience exceeding 400,000 per year.

The 2020 Edinburgh International Festival was cancelled for the first time in its history due to concerns around the Covid-19 pandemic but remains actively engaged in Edinburgh’s community and in creating cultural content for both Scotland’s capital city and the world.

About Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI)

The purpose of the University of Edinburgh’s Futures Institute is to pursue knowledge and understanding that will help us to navigate our complex futures.

EFI’s approach to research, education and engagement combines multi-disciplinarity with co-production. Working with industry, government and local and global communities EFI is committed to building a challenge-led and data-rich portfolio of activity with demonstrable ethical, social, cultural, economic and environmental impact.

About Experiential AI

Experiential AI is a research group at Edinburgh Futures Institute and the Edinburgh College of Art. We aim to support the creation of artistic works using machine learning algorithms and robotics, and to inspire new concepts and paradigms on ethical and responsible AI. Experiential AI develops research on AI futures, science, art and ethics through collaborations with artists, festivals and the AI community.

Our mission with The New Real is to build awareness and understanding of the ways data systems and AI reflect and shape our social reality. This project presents two interactive artworks that each explore the boundary between the physical and digital.