Me, you, we – exploring identity through AI.

#telepotions #newmedia #telematic #performance #identity #presence #deepfake #dialogue #relationalpractice #technology #magic

Cristina Maldonado’s & Isa Juchniewicz's Unseen project titled this person does not NOT exist is – in the words of a participant – “trippy”, to say the least. Conducted as a series of one-on-one Zoom performances (with a third “guest” joining at some point during the call), this project meditates on the diverse dimensions of 'human' through a process of collective memory, imagination and conversation. Interestingly, it is the only project presented via Unseen which takes place exclusively within the online space and views its possibilities in a positive light. It utilises its tools – and even technologies like AI or terms like deepfake’ – to explore self-identity and understanding.

While inspired by https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/, a seemingly infinite database of AI-generated faces, this person does not NOT exist takes the fabricated human entity to a whole different level. What is created in these performances isn't just a hyper-advanced collage of two or more faces, but it is a third entity which reflects who the two participants are. It's deeply uncanny, almost uncomfortably so, but also incredibly revelatory. This person does not NOT exist – because they easily could!

Through a process of mirroring the participants' identities onto an AI-generated entity, what becomes clear is that we, as human beings, are built by accumulation – we are because others and things around us also are. We aren't able to achieve individuality without experiences, interactions and heritage. The decisions made by our ancestors have an impact on who we are. So do the decisions of our family and friends once we are alive: the city where your mother decided to study when she was young has an impact on your life today, as does that time when one of your parents swore in front of you for the first time. The visual and aural entity created during this project is a clear metaphor for all the social exchanges that precede who we've become – in this particular case, it is the social exchanges of the two participants that determine who this third entity - “we” - will become.

This is a particularly pertinent project, because a large portion of society spent almost a year in isolating, often lonely, circumstances. Reuniting with people after a period of time can be difficult, but after all, it is precisely them who make us who we are. Without others, we are a shadow of ourselves, barely a presence. So let's celebrate each other, friendships, and revel in each other's life-affirming company.

Adam Badí Donoval

THIS PERSON DOES NOT NOT EXIST

IF IN THE DISTANCE
THE BODY BECOMES IMAGE,
IF BEING WITH YOU, IS BEING WITH YOUR IMAGE,
IF OUR NEED OF TOGETHERNESS
CAN BE MET BY MERGING OUR IMAGES,
IF WHEN BECOMING ONE WITH YOU
I AM REMINDED OF ALL THE INNER IMAGES
OF ALL THE OTHERS THAT I HAVE MET IN THE PAST
AND OF ALL THE OTHERS I COULD STILL BECOME
IF, THEN, ALONE, AT THE DISTANCE
MY BODY CAN TRANSFORM IN YOUR PRESENCE

THEN LET’S ZOOM.

Here and now
I am aware of 
the power of not
being who I am.

1.      Look into each other’s eyes.
         Fit yourself into each other.
         You are going to share one body for a long time.

2.      Who are you, together?
         Who is the entity that emerges from the combination of your features?
         Who is this third person you form? could it be another version of yourselves?

3.      Speculate.
         Embody conversation as a spell to change the past.
         Use your biographies, combine them, as your imgaes merge now.
         Combine the things that happened to one of you with the things that happened to the other, combine the decisions you made, people you met, questions and wishes you both have into one.

4.      Witness the birth of a third person ﹣a variation of yourselves who is looking at you now.

RESEARCH DESCRIPTION

We are two artists interested in experimenting with technology in order to define its underlying narratives, relationships and dramaturgy. By exploring what mediation, together with technology, do to our sense of presence, to our capacity of bonding and to the ways they open a limitless imaginarium, we consider diverse dimensions of the ‘human’. In the beginning of 2021, we decided to create a platform to frame this artistic research. Telepotions I.C. focuses on developing visual potions which explore the effects distanced mediation has on the self. 

Technology is our playground in which we traverse the mystery of the ‘human’; we distort, transform and restore presence. By embedding ourselves into this digitally mediated world, we hope to increase our understanding of how human presence is affected by the digital – its potential and implications. In our work, we emphasize technologies that have become part of our everyday life and question their nature, their effect on us and our coexistence with them.

As Telepotions I.C., we combine our skills and research inclinations as artists which results in a potion of technical know-how, media archaeology, audience participation, postdramatic theatre and devised and immersive theatre methodologies. Together, we follow our curiosity, senses, intuition and love to discover new sights of things forgotten or taken for granted. This practice is our particular way of resurrecting mystery. We create rituals in which the other, the guest, the audience is not only a consumer of art, but practices the craft. In our work, participation is not an imposition, but a casual way of being together and engaging in creative coexistence – a panpharmacon for mundane reality. 

"How does mediated presence enable new ways of relating?"

"How can mediation reconfigure our notion of presence and absence?"

"How does a mediated presence enable new affections and relationships?"

"How can experiencing new affections and relationships build other realities?"

Referring to anthropologist Alfred Gell’s perspective of art being a technology of enchantment, we conjure up intermediary spaces which activate the affectivity and relationality of those who inhabit them. Our pócimas visuales(visual potions) is a series of participatory intermediary works that study presence, mediation, technology and magic to rethink our relationship with space and with others. Telepotions I.C.'s first visual potion Continuum Presencial premiered this year at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). It was a participatory online performance on Zoom featuring seven performers. The work explored different dimensions of our sense of identity through visual manipulations resulting in overlapped and deepfaked presences. Additionally, the audience was obliged to sign pseudolegal contracts which problematized the idea of copyrighting one’s own presence and donating it for the duration of the performance.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

this person does not NOT exist is a 45-minute long dialogical telematic performance. A conversation on Zoom becomes an enchantment device for us in which, together with the guest, we create a human entity that will be registered in an archive of people that could have existed.

In this online conversation we rewrite what we know; we open the way to an alternative reality which the spectator and performer communicate to ‘construct / build / create’ using memory, improvisation, imagination. Art and technology serve as a device to access what we do not know, what we have not experienced yet… It is a process in which we conjure what we could have been or have yet to become. In this sense, we maintain that this mediation is magical. The ‘magical’ results in creating a fissure in lineal reality and gives us agency to conjure a new one.

The title of this telepotion – this person does not NOT exist – is inspired by thispersondoesnotexist.com. If you visit this website, you’ll be greeted by a portrait that has been generated by an algorithm developed by NVIDIA Corporation trained to synthesize new facial images. A hyper-advanced method of collaging, if you will. An artificial intelligence that uses the accumulation of human material to recombine and reproduce the ‘human’. Mirroring ourselves in this artificial intelligence process, we can be reminded of how we are built as human beings – by accumulation of experiences, interactions and heritages. This visual process becomes a clear metaphor for all the social exchanges that precede the singular entity.

The anthropologist Marilyn Strathern affirms that it is precisely the moment of interaction with others when we can establish our identity. From this perspective, we can imagine a continuum between people: the presence of someone leaves residues in us, these residues shape us and will shape whoever interacts with us. They in turn will shape others and so on infinitely. A continuum of tacit presences in every conversation and in every encounter. Instead of imagining ourselves as separate individuals, we can visualize a stream of inheritances and residues that we leave in others and others leave in us. A continuous movement of presences where there are no absolute identities but identities in perpetual transformation and movement. And if this is so, we are perpetually connected through traces.

However, contrary to the algorithm’s procedure, the recombination of presences comes along with context – a past, previous experiences, heritage, a wish for the future, consequences of one’s decisions or regrets that might or might not get resolved. The conjured person, this recombination of entities, is not brought to life by quickly reloading the webpage. It is created neither anonymously nor using a mathematical model. It is a ritual, the product of human labor, evolving over time, through imagination, trust and openness. The performer guides the guest’s imagination to conjure an entity that does not NOT exist; an entity that could have existed if a few things in the past would have happened differently; an entity that is an accumulation of their experience, their heritage, their choices and consequences. By accepting the otherness and letting it in, both performer and guest play a game that bends their identities and transforms the way they see themselves.

"Who would I be today if a few things in your past would have happened differently?"

"Would possible variations of myself have existed if some of my life events were exposed to minuscule changes?"

BIO

SECONDARY SOURCES

Strathern, M., 1990. Gender of the Gift. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

Sansi, R., 2014. Art, Anthropology and the Gift. Abingdon: Routledge.

Gell, A., 1994. ‘The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology’, in Coote, J. and Shelton, A. (eds.), Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

*this person does not NOT exist is an online performance for a single audience-member that took place on Zoom between June 21 and June 23, 2021. All the video material above is a result of a 45-minute videocalls, where the artist made a new “human being” in collaboration with a participant and with the help of artificial intelligence. The dialogue of the artist and the participant created a process in which both mutually mirrored their identities. This “new body” gradually achieved a past, present and future through collective memory, imagination, personal memories and technology.

You can find the event here. 

this person does not NOT exist was supported by Unseen, Terēn: field for performing arts and is a part of the research series Pócimas Visuales, project supported by Sistema de Apoyos a la Creación y Proyectos Culturales (FONCA).

Me, you, we – exploring identity through AI.

#telepotions #newmedia #telematic #performance #identity #presence #deepfake #dialogue #relationalpractice #technology #magic

Cristina Maldonado’s & Isa Juchniewicz's Unseen project titled this person does not NOT exist is – in the words of a participant – “trippy”, to say the least. Conducted as a series of one-on-one Zoom performances (with a third “guest” joining at some point during the call), this project meditates on the diverse dimensions of 'human' through a process of collective memory, imagination and conversation. Interestingly, it is the only project presented via Unseen which takes place exclusively within the online space and views its possibilities in a positive light. It utilises its tools – and even technologies like AI or terms like deepfake’ – to explore self-identity and understanding.

While inspired by https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/, a seemingly infinite database of AI-generated faces, this person does not NOT exist takes the fabricated human entity to a whole different level. What is created in these performances isn't just a hyper-advanced collage of two or more faces, but it is a third entity which reflects who the two participants are. It's deeply uncanny, almost uncomfortably so, but also incredibly revelatory. This person does not NOT exist – because they easily could!

Through a process of mirroring the participants' identities onto an AI-generated entity, what becomes clear is that we, as human beings, are built by accumulation – we are because others and things around us also are. We aren't able to achieve individuality without experiences, interactions and heritage. The decisions made by our ancestors have an impact on who we are. So do the decisions of our family and friends once we are alive: the city where your mother decided to study when she was young has an impact on your life today, as does that time when one of your parents swore in front of you for the first time. The visual and aural entity created during this project is a clear metaphor for all the social exchanges that precede who we've become – in this particular case, it is the social exchanges of the two participants that determine who this third entity - “we” - will become.

This is a particularly pertinent project, because a large portion of society spent almost a year in isolating, often lonely, circumstances. Reuniting with people after a period of time can be difficult, but after all, it is precisely them who make us who we are. Without others, we are a shadow of ourselves, barely a presence. So let's celebrate each other, friendships, and revel in each other's life-affirming company.

Adam Badí Donoval

THIS PERSON DOES NOT NOT EXIST

IF IN THE DISTANCE
THE BODY BECOMES IMAGE,
IF BEING WITH YOU, IS BEING WITH YOUR IMAGE,
IF OUR NEED OF TOGETHERNESS
CAN BE MET BY MERGING OUR IMAGES,
IF WHEN BECOMING ONE WITH YOU
I AM REMINDED OF ALL THE INNER IMAGES
OF ALL THE OTHERS THAT I HAVE MET IN THE PAST
AND OF ALL THE OTHERS I COULD STILL BECOME
IF, THEN, ALONE, AT THE DISTANCE
MY BODY CAN TRANSFORM IN YOUR PRESENCE

THEN LET’S ZOOM.

Here and now
I am aware of 
the power of not
being who I am.

1.      Look into each other’s eyes.
         Fit yourself into each other.
         You are going to share one body for a long time.

2.      Who are you, together?
         Who is the entity that emerges from the combination of your features?
         Who is this third person you form? could it be another version of yourselves?

3.      Speculate.
         Embody conversation as a spell to change the past.
         Use your biographies, combine them, as your imgaes merge now.
         Combine the things that happened to one of you with the things that happened to the other, combine the decisions you made, people you met, questions and wishes you both have into one.

4.      Witness the birth of a third person ﹣a variation of yourselves who is looking at you now.

RESEARCH DESCRIPTION

We are two artists interested in experimenting with technology in order to define its underlying narratives, relationships and dramaturgy. By exploring what mediation, together with technology, do to our sense of presence, to our capacity of bonding and to the ways they open a limitless imaginarium, we consider diverse dimensions of the ‘human’. In the beginning of 2021, we decided to create a platform to frame this artistic research. Telepotions I.C. focuses on developing visual potions which explore the effects distanced mediation has on the self. 

Technology is our playground in which we traverse the mystery of the ‘human’; we distort, transform and restore presence. By embedding ourselves into this digitally mediated world, we hope to increase our understanding of how human presence is affected by the digital – its potential and implications. In our work, we emphasize technologies that have become part of our everyday life and question their nature, their effect on us and our coexistence with them.

As Telepotions I.C., we combine our skills and research inclinations as artists which results in a potion of technical know-how, media archaeology, audience participation, postdramatic theatre and devised and immersive theatre methodologies. Together, we follow our curiosity, senses, intuition and love to discover new sights of things forgotten or taken for granted. This practice is our particular way of resurrecting mystery. We create rituals in which the other, the guest, the audience is not only a consumer of art, but practices the craft. In our work, participation is not an imposition, but a casual way of being together and engaging in creative coexistence – a panpharmacon for mundane reality. 

"How does mediated presence enable new ways of relating?"

"How can mediation reconfigure our notion of presence and absence?"

"How does a mediated presence enable new affections and relationships?"

"How can experiencing new affections and relationships build other realities?"

Referring to anthropologist Alfred Gell’s perspective of art being a technology of enchantment, we conjure up intermediary spaces which activate the affectivity and relationality of those who inhabit them. Our pócimas visuales(visual potions) is a series of participatory intermediary works that study presence, mediation, technology and magic to rethink our relationship with space and with others. Telepotions I.C.'s first visual potion Continuum Presencial premiered this year at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). It was a participatory online performance on Zoom featuring seven performers. The work explored different dimensions of our sense of identity through visual manipulations resulting in overlapped and deepfaked presences. Additionally, the audience was obliged to sign pseudolegal contracts which problematized the idea of copyrighting one’s own presence and donating it for the duration of the performance.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

this person does not NOT exist is a 45-minute long dialogical telematic performance. A conversation on Zoom becomes an enchantment device for us in which, together with the guest, we create a human entity that will be registered in an archive of people that could have existed.

In this online conversation we rewrite what we know; we open the way to an alternative reality which the spectator and performer communicate to ‘construct / build / create’ using memory, improvisation, imagination. Art and technology serve as a device to access what we do not know, what we have not experienced yet… It is a process in which we conjure what we could have been or have yet to become. In this sense, we maintain that this mediation is magical. The ‘magical’ results in creating a fissure in lineal reality and gives us agency to conjure a new one.

The title of this telepotion – this person does not NOT exist – is inspired by thispersondoesnotexist.com. If you visit this website, you’ll be greeted by a portrait that has been generated by an algorithm developed by NVIDIA Corporation trained to synthesize new facial images. A hyper-advanced method of collaging, if you will. An artificial intelligence that uses the accumulation of human material to recombine and reproduce the ‘human’. Mirroring ourselves in this artificial intelligence process, we can be reminded of how we are built as human beings – by accumulation of experiences, interactions and heritages. This visual process becomes a clear metaphor for all the social exchanges that precede the singular entity.

The anthropologist Marilyn Strathern affirms that it is precisely the moment of interaction with others when we can establish our identity. From this perspective, we can imagine a continuum between people: the presence of someone leaves residues in us, these residues shape us and will shape whoever interacts with us. They in turn will shape others and so on infinitely. A continuum of tacit presences in every conversation and in every encounter. Instead of imagining ourselves as separate individuals, we can visualize a stream of inheritances and residues that we leave in others and others leave in us. A continuous movement of presences where there are no absolute identities but identities in perpetual transformation and movement. And if this is so, we are perpetually connected through traces.

However, contrary to the algorithm’s procedure, the recombination of presences comes along with context – a past, previous experiences, heritage, a wish for the future, consequences of one’s decisions or regrets that might or might not get resolved. The conjured person, this recombination of entities, is not brought to life by quickly reloading the webpage. It is created neither anonymously nor using a mathematical model. It is a ritual, the product of human labor, evolving over time, through imagination, trust and openness. The performer guides the guest’s imagination to conjure an entity that does not NOT exist; an entity that could have existed if a few things in the past would have happened differently; an entity that is an accumulation of their experience, their heritage, their choices and consequences. By accepting the otherness and letting it in, both performer and guest play a game that bends their identities and transforms the way they see themselves.

"Who would I be today if a few things in your past would have happened differently?"

"Would possible variations of myself have existed if some of my life events were exposed to minuscule changes?"

BIO

SECONDARY SOURCES

Strathern, M., 1990. Gender of the Gift. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

Sansi, R., 2014. Art, Anthropology and the Gift. Abingdon: Routledge.

Gell, A., 1994. ‘The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology’, in Coote, J. and Shelton, A. (eds.), Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

[1] this person does not NOT exist is an online performance for a single audience-member that took place on Zoom between June 21 and June 23. All the video material above is a result of a 45-minute videocalls, where the artist made a new “human being” in collaboration with a participant and with the help of artificial intelligence. The dialogue of the artist and the participant created a process in which both mutually mirrored their identities. This “new body” gradually achieved a past, present and future through collective memory, imagination, personal memories and technology.

You can find the event here.