The Zizi Show - North American Premiere - Free
The Zizi Show
North American Premiere
Deepfake Drag Cabaret
Jake Elwes, UK
SATURDAY AUGUST 17
4:00pm - 8:30pm
Anvil Centre Ballroom, New Westminster
Interactive AI Manipulated Projection with Sound
14 x 26 Projection Screen + Video Gallery
FREE - Drop-In During New West Pride
Cast - Drag Queens, Kings and Things:
Baby Lame | Bolly-Illusion | Bourgeoisie | Cara Melle | Charlie Wood | Chiyo | Dahc Dermur VIII | Dakota Schiffer | HERR | Lilly SnatchDragon | Lavinia Co-op | Luke Slyka | Mahatma Khandi | Mark Anthony | Me The Drag Queen | Miss Terri Boxx | Oedipussi Rex | Ruby Wednesday | Sister Sister | TeTe Bang | Wet Mess
Presented by New Media Gallery, City of New Westminster
ABOUT THE ZIZI SHOW
Zizi is mercurial, defying categorisation.
...disrupt the data set by flooding it with a myriad of marvelous queer drag bodies.
...a glitchy queer utopia, exploring the aesthetic possibilities and ethical dilemmas which exist within the strange world of Artificial Intelligence.
For one evening only, in its North American debut, THE ZIZI SHOW! A unique, interactive A.I. Drag Show, presented on a giant, 14 x 26 foot screen in Anvil Centre Ballroom....open to the street for all to share.
UK Artist Jake Elwes has created The Zizi Project and The Zizi Show, an interactive, deepfake, virtual cabaret, that welcomes drop-in audiences. Drag performers, filtered through AI, are chosen by the audience to perform captivating moments of deepfake chaos and imperfection; queering the data. Zizi explores what AI can teach us about drag, and what drag can teach us about A.I.
The idea came about through a collaboration between artist Jake Elwes and one of London’s top drag queens – Me the Drag Queen. Elwes wondered how the world of A.I and art could collide with the world of live drag cabaret acts. For a few years Elwes had been exploring the concept of queering artificial intelligence to tackle bias. He did this by injecting images of drag kings, drag queens and drag things into training datasets to shift the neural network into a space of otherness, a queer space. Working together with the Edinburgh Futures Institute they created artificial intelligence as a performance tool; exploring how lip-syncs and movement could be incorporated into computational systems. The AI was trained on video footage of thirteen well-known drag performers, filmed at a London cabaret venue during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The Zizi Show is a series of constantly shifting faces and bodies where lipstick, lashes, liner and bodies break down in an unpredictable, uncontrollable and fabulous way.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jake Elwes is a British media artist and researcher living and working in London. Their practice is the exploration of artificial intelligence (AI)l, queer theory and technical biases. They are known for using AI to create art in mediums such as video, performance and installation. Their work focusses on queering technology issues caused by the normative biases of artificial intelligence. Elwes' work with artificial intelligence is cited as a hopeful strategy to make AI more playful and diverse. They studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. They were a 2021 finalist for the Lumen Prize and received Honorary Mention in 2022 Prix Ars Electronica in the Interactive Art + category.They have exhibited in museums and galleries across Europe and Asia and now in Canada.
CREDITS:
Jake Elwes - Artist Coder & Producer, Me - Director of Drag, Alexander Hill - Web & Development, Toby Elwes - Camera & Lighting, Charlie Baker - Sound Mixing, The Apple Tree - Filming Location (LGBTQ+ Cabaret Venue)
The Zizi Show was commissioned and produced by Edinburgh Futures Institute. Supported by the University of Edinburgh Creative Scotland Creative Informatics and the Data-Driven Innovation programme of the South East Scotland City and Region Deal.
