Euro(re)vision (2019)
“Euro(re)vision is moving image deep-fake artwork, where two topical EU government leaders from 2019, Angela Merkel and Theresa May perform absurd and nonsensical songs in a Euro(re)vision song contest-like setting.
Inspired by Dada poetry, such as Hugo Ball’s sound poem ‘o gadji beri bimba’ and the racaus Cabaret Voltaire, this piece uses two deep fake models and three character-level recurrent neural network models to create new forms of algorithmic poetry and performance.
Inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest, Euro(re)vision is partly an absurd critique of current political systems and rhetoric. The piece explores the often nefarious relationships between artificial intelligence, politics and pop culture.
However, as the languages join together towards the end of the song, Euro(re)vision ultimately proposes a different, more united Europe (beyond traditional politics?), where alternative messages are expressed.”
(with thanks the Goethe Institute London for commissioning the piece and to Echo Ru Yi (Camera) and Josh Brian (Guitar))