KEEPING MUM
The Social Contract 2024. Photo Roman. Single Channel Video 18′ 38″.
(Film still) The Social Contract 2024.Single Channel Video 18′ 38″.
(Film still) The Social Contract 2024.Single Channel Video 18′ 38″.
Muse – Luella Disley.
Guest – Carol Moreton.
Original music – Lauren Dejey.
Sound recording – Isa Suarez.
Synthetically grown and raised as her mother’s carer, a bag-grown Keeper, pushed to breaking, breaks her Terms & Conditions, hurting the thing she loves most.
A complex tale about life controlled by the state, war fought of new fronts, new waves of feminism, women’s reproductive rights, the right to life, designer babies, bio ethics, and the impact of trans-generational trauma on families. It raises questions about how history, the victor’s story is only one version of events, and explores false memory and the reality of truth in the AI era.
Written in 2021 and made into a photo roman film and photostory in 2024. The images were made by taking a series of photographs with model and muse Luella Disley in my studio, that were used alongside language prompts, to build an AI model. Control meets the unknown with surprising results. The AI produces its images by taking what it is given and responding, drawing on everything available to it on the Internet. Most of its output is riddled with bias. Attention is drawn to some of the issues with the work.
The soundtrack is a haunting piece of music by young recording artist and songwriter, Lauren DeJey. Called ‘Drowning me’, it is about ego, what’s under the surface, control and wanting to be free.
The Social Contract was was originally created as Earth, one in a series of speculative fictions, collectively titled ‘Elemental’, designed around the alchemical elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Brimstone, building blocks that built the world the way it is – that could just as easily build it differently.