DUCK

Institute for Design Informatics PhD candidate Martin Disley worked closely with the acclaimed artist, Rachel Maclean on her latest film DUCK: a deepfake British spy thriller parody starring Sean Connery and Marilyn Monroe. Produced using deepfake visuals and audio, Maclean, who plays all the characters, swaps her voice and face with the very recognisable cast of actors. Both the protagonist and the viewer find themselves in a surreal, ever-shifting reality in which fixed definitions of identity and trustworthiness are questioned. The characters frequently act like they are just playing a game and behave like the normal rules of mortality don’t apply to them, leading to them quite literally driving themselves off a cliff – a possible reflection on Brexit and an overwrought British self-confidence seeding its own dissolution. 

Using state-of-the-art deepfake audio synthesis techniques, Martin developed bespoke voice clones for each of the characters in the film. These models were then used to convert Maclean’s voice as recorded on set into the those of the characters. 

While DUCK has been shown as part of Maclean’s solo show at Kunstpalais in Erlangen, Germany, visitors to Design Informatics’ own “Sounds of Deep Fake” exhibition at the Edinburgh Art Festival had the opportunity to manipulate these voice models firsthand in a new installation. 

By seamlessly integrating deepfake audio synthesis into her film, Rachel Maclean’s collaboration with Design Informatics challenges viewers to question both the veracity of media and the ethics of manipulating likeness. This collaboration underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaborations between researchers and artists and invites profound discussions about the impacts of emerging technologies. 

DUCK (2023) was produced by Forest of Black with support from Newcastle University, Kunstpalais, and the Institute for Design Informatics. 

Cover Image: DUCK, digital video still, 2023, Rachel Maclean.