IMPAKT at Ars Electronica, Linz
Deep Fake or Rendering the Truth
Panel is co-organized with Tobias Revell, Natalie Kane and the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz
Sunday September 9th, 15:00 – 16:30. Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria
The role of computer graphics in news reporting and truth telling has a long history, from weathermen to intricate chromakeyed maps of warzones used by news presenters. As computational power continues to increase exponentially, and with new technologies like machine learning, the ability of these graphics to accurately simulate reality is becoming a worrying reality. In August 2017, the Graphics and Imaging Laboratory at Washington University released a video ‘Synthesizing Obama’ which demonstrated the ability to synthesize a life-like rendering of Obama in real time. Over the last few years, several news programs have used video game footage in stories about global wars and one of the most widely circulated images of a drone, used extensively to this day in reporting on covert warfare is itself a rendering. The ability of computers to fake reality convincingly is going to become more and more of a critical problem as hackers, extremist news organisations and politicians seek to control the media narrative through increasingly convincing visuals. This panel will consider and speculate on possible futures for rendered realities and suggest strategies for regulating or countering artificial realities created by computation.
Guests: Tobias Revell, Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat), Lauren Alexander (Foundland), Simone Niquille and Leonhard Lass
Moderator: Arjon Dunnewind.
In addition to this panel IMPAKT is also present at Ars Electronica with an installation by Foundland (co-production IMPAKT and Ars Electronica) and Mosaic Virus by Anna Ridler (IMPAKT EMAP resident 2018)