Zizi - Queering the Dataset

2019, multi-channel digital video without audio, 135 minute loop

The faces in these videos are all generated by A.I. and do not exist in the real world.

‘Zizi - Queering the Dataset’ aims to tackle the lack of representation and diversity in the training datasets often used by facial recognition systems. The video was made by disrupting these systems* and re-training them with the addition of 1000 images of drag and gender fluid faces found online. This causes the weights inside the neural network to shift away from the normative identities it was originally trained on and into a space of queerness. ‘Zizi - Queering The Dataset’ lets us peek inside the machine learning system and visualise what the neural network has (and hasn’t) learnt. The work is a celebration of difference and ambiguity, which invites us to reflect on bias in our data driven society.

*StyleGan (2019) trained on FFHQ (2018) containing 70,000 photographs of faces

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.

Instagram @zizidrag - machine learning generated captions trained on drag profiles.
Zizi was originally commissioned as a seven channel video installation by Experiential AI at Edinburgh Futures Institute and Inspace, The University of Edinburgh.
Presented as site specific video installation with between 3 and 10 projected video channels.