DEEP-FAKE 1: THE PRODUCTION ROOM

Co-Lab Show 01
October 17 & 18, 2024
Studio T – SFU School for the Contemporary Arts
149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver

Students embarked on an investigation into the theme of Deep-fake, spanning technology, performance, and reality, seeking to question and challenge the concept of authenticity in live performance. By exploring the theme of Deep-Fake within performance contexts, students delved into the complexities of creating believable worlds and personas, utilizing technology, emotions, tone, sound, visuals, text and movement, exploring notions of authenticity and the imagined, inviting the audience to join them in exploring the intricate interplay between artifice, reality, and the realms of the imagined within live performance.

Students were given parameters, a small budget, three to four weeks to rehearse, design and run technical rehearsals for their work-in-progress showings to form a triptych of works to span the fall semester. The first two performances take place in Studio T and their last work will be a design-led installation performances throughout the SCA building.  

The first showing in the triptych is titled: Deep-Fake 1: The Production Room. Students explored the form of deepfakes as a tool to dissect and disembody the tracks of composition, the source from the sound, the body from the voice in the context of a live performance work.  Students researched the theme of deep-fake and the construction of deepfakes as a potential structure to look at truth and authenticity, and to imagine the potential production rooms of creating and or inhabiting a deep-fake. As a class we asked many questions: What happens when the audience is able to view the construction of a fake world?  What happens in the space between nonfiction and fiction? What is the truth depending on whose perspective is viewing the event? What does the mixture of truths and falsehoods reveal, both devastating and humorous, about humanity’s course and what warnings might be sounded for our future?

Production & Design Team  

Assistant Professor (Theatre & Performance): Erika Latta
Stage Manager: Jae Gonzales
Show Supervisor Faculty: Kyla Gardiner
Lighting Designer & Programer: Darryl Strohan (GCAPES Resident Technician)
Manager, Production & Events: Emily Neumann
Technical Director: Ben Rogalsky
Poster + Program Design: Brady Cranfield

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