Situated Deepfakes workshop by Anna Engelhardt - ONLINE

Update: In response to escalating concerns about the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19), we have decided to carry out the Situated Deepfake workshop online and offline in two parts: Workshop (Sat, 21 March, online) and an one day exhibition of your work created during this workshop followed by a crit with Anna Engelhardt at LOA Gallery (July, date tbc ). We look forward to meeting you all. ∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎

In the upcoming workshop, Situated Deepfakes, Anne Engelhardt will reflect on her experience making a deepfake video and explain how to make one yourself. LOA invited this transnational artist, who is active in different countries using different names due to safety concerns, to share and interrogate her methods in the context of her transnational mobility.

Part One ▶ A critical overview of the contemporary economy of deepfakes, questioning the universal nature of the threat they are supposed to possess. Paying attention to the context and language deepfakes are produced in, deepfakes will be presented as a practice of situated knowledge-production. Such situated deepfakes, speaking from the non-western context, can push the limitations of radical political imagination and break the presented taboo.

Part two ▶ A practical engagement with technology. Participants will be given a chance to produce their own deepfakes, reflecting the ethical considerations overviewed in the first part of the workshop. Sample Work by Engelhardt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEBnZMCpWZ4&feature=youtu.be

Material ► You are welcome to attend either at LOA gallery or ONLINE. Links to the materials and online broadcast of the workshop will be circulated after RSVP*.

Donation ► The workshop is free for all but we very much welcome donations which will go towards SOAS Detainee Support (SDS). Anna Engelhardt is an artist from Kostroma, Russia, who is making political projects as practice-based research by utilising the variety of digital media. Her main interests are decoloniality, logistics, and feminist politics in post-Soviet space. She holds an MA in Research Architecture from Goldsmiths, UoL. https://crimeanbridge.info/Main

*RSVP, Please book a ticket on Eventbrite or email name(s) to leaveofabsence.london@gmail.com.