Elvis, (2019), two channel video work, no sound, 1min30.

Elvis is a two-channel video portrait of the artist as Elvis and Elvis as the artist using a machine learning technique known as deepfake face swap.

The work was made in 2019 before AI became as entangled in people’s everyday lives as it is now and foresees current issues around algorithmic ownership, labour and identity. Since Elvis and Libby have different facial structures, there’s a subtle blurring of identity – a non-binary Elvis – an uncanny hybrid of them both. 

Audience members come to the piece with the assumption that both screens are showing the original Elvis, but then notice the differences due to the deepfakes. 

The piece highlights the constructed nature of gender, particularly in relation to recent digital technologies. The work questions the notion of male author genius and also talks about our desire and consumption around the cult of celebrity. 

Elvis invites the audience into a reimagined history where the King of Rock and Roll was actually a womxn.

Elvis was exhibited at Mether, Huddersfield; arebyte Gallery, London; Art AI, Leicester; Etopia Centre for Art and Technology, Zaragoza.