In collaboration with engineer Neil Franks, and with a major programming leg up from cntl shift face, we now have a deep fake, which has learned to speak like Sir David Attenborough.  I introduce to you david.attenbot. This project began as an attempt to gain better access and understanding into the current landscape of artificial intelligence technologies, which have largely only been utilized by corporate industries, and the department of defense. These institutions have created cultures of practice around the use of artificial intelligence tools, which largely neglects its significant potentials, as targeted advertising and smart weapons have captured their hearts and minds. The filmmaker in me is always searching for cinematic potentials in new tools, and the opaque use and culture around artificial intelligence made it ripe for my curiosity.  Concurrently, my orientation as a trans women is always seeking ways in which, new technologies or cultures of practice can serve and improve the visibility of marginalized perspectives, and identities. The third leg of this table comes from my experience as a scuba diver, and my relationship with the sea as an immense space of futurity.

Through my exploration of these tools and practices, I began to recognize parallels between the way mainstream cultures represent and discuss deepfakes, as well as notions of passing, which has a history in race and class, but in my case is oriented towards my gender expression. In both cases, deepfakes and passing are measured on a spectrum of authenticity and deception. A spectrum, which was fabricated by heteronormative media institutions, who’s centered privilege has created a gate keeping around notions of authenticity of identities. The reality is that queer, and other marginalized bodies, are policed to operate inside of injurious terms, where if you are someone who wishes to pass and you happen to succeed, you are still at risk of being found out, and punished as a deceiver. If you are a visibly queer body, and don’t “pass,” whether by intention or not, you are also at risk of harm for the discomfort you cause within heteronormative spaces.

This brings me to the world of deep fakes. Deep fakes are shrouded in controversy, due to their seemingly nefarious intentions to deceive and create false realities. This perspective comes from demographics who perhaps have credibility to lose. I am interested in the use of deepfakes for good, and what they can do for the democratization and propagation of marginalized narratives. It is my experience that a voice like that of Sir David is oddly oriented towards being credible and trustworthy identity by default. I believe that the work David Attenborough has contributed to the global understanding of the natural world is both profound and important, and it also got me to thinking about what credibility his voice could lend to the queer natures and cultures, which are so often underrepresented or misrepresented by heteronormative media industries, whose institutions are often built on undeserved or unearned credibility. What does it mean for the voice of Sir David Attenborough to narrate the experience of a transgender woman? Does that mean that my experiences, my presentation, and my story are eligible to be bestowed with the heft and acclaim of other much-loved BBC productions?