{"id":5364,"date":"2026-04-24T11:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T11:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/?page_id=5364"},"modified":"2026-04-24T11:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T11:42:07","slug":"gates-talk-deepfake-bodies-and-the-drag-professor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/?page_id=5364","title":{"rendered":"GATES talk: Deepfake Bodies and the Drag Professor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>I introduce my forthcoming book\u00a0<em>Deepfake Bodies: The Sexual Politics of AI\u00a0<\/em>(Bloomsbury Academic) and explain how the writing led to the creation of an artwork, entitled\u00a0<em>The Wet Ones.\u00a0<\/em>The artwork is a video installation and performance piece based on a sci-fi scenario featuring the drag persona \u201cDr. Jacobs,\u201d an ageing scholar who has been selected to synthesize a younger clone of himself\u2014the \u201cAI professor.\u201d In the story, a mishap occurs and the AI professor escapes from the MaCi lab. We follow Dr. Jacobs on a voyage to find \u00a0his AI creation close to the surrounding waters of the Is\u00e8re river.\u00a0The installation and sci-fi story take inspiration from ancient Chinese and Greek myths of aquatic humanoids, such as the Nereids (The Wet Ones), tiny nymphs who travel in packs and protect waters. The story also comments on our transforming AI bodies, water-ecologies and creativities. It references Mary Shelley&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Frankenstein<\/em>, featuring a cutting-edge scientist and his flawed creation who trail and stalk each other in the Alpine mountain region.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"GATES Talk - Deepfake Bodies and the Drag Professor by Katrien JACOBS (Senior Fellow)\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RtAB7XOj0oo?start=1917&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I introduce my forthcoming book\u00a0Deepfake Bodies: The Sexual Politics of AI\u00a0(Bloomsbury Academic) and explain how the writing led to the creation of an artwork, entitled\u00a0The Wet Ones.\u00a0The artwork is a video installation and performance piece based on a sci-fi scenario featuring the drag persona \u201cDr. Jacobs,\u201d an ageing scholar who has been selected to synthesize&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/?page_id=5364\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">GATES talk: Deepfake Bodies and the Drag Professor<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5364","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5365,"href":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5364\/revisions\/5365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libidot.org\/wp\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}