About the Author
This website represents the culmination of my time at the University of Texas at Austin receiving my Masters in Media Studies.
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I first began to take an interest in machine-human interactions and relationships in Dr. Sharon Strover's "Communication, Technology, and Culture" class, where I was first introduced to the digital influencer Lil Miquela. Miquela was the start of my thinking about the ways that we integrate machines and technology into our daily lives. In following this line of enquiry, I found myself contemplating the way that in taking a recuperative stance toward technology, and in looking at our images of machines and tech through a queer lens, can reveal new modes of being in the world. I found myself transfixed by the ways that these creations are frequently the backdrop that allow humans a way to imagine a different world and a different self. More often than not, these imaginings take on a distinctly counter-hegemonic sensibility.
Halfway through “Communication, Technology, and Culture” (Spring 2020), the COVID-19 pandemic forced us into remote online courses. I’m writing this section on the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring a worldwide pandemic. Since then, I’ve completed the majority of my Masters remotely.
(Un)Masking the Queer
Deepfake identity protection in the documentary Welcome to Chechnya
David Frances’ Welcome to Chechnya (2020) focuses on the survivors of Chechnya’s “Gay Purge” and the dedicated network of activists that work tirelessly to smuggle LGBTQ persons out of the country. Since as recent as 2017, there have been reports of the government targeting, abducting, and torturing LGBTQ Chechens. In order to protect the identity of the survivors Welcome to Chechnya uses deepfake (colloquially known as face-swap) technology. By swapping the faces of the survivors with faces of queer activist volunteers from New York, France is able to record the harrowing events of the individual survivors’ escapes from Ramzan Kadyrov’s Republic without sacrificing “their humanity.”
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This “humanity,” veiled and protected by technology is why Welcome to Chechnya is included in my report. Deepfakes allow viewers to confront the human rights violations being committed in Chechnya “face to face.” The deepfakes in the documentary mislead and obfuscate direct visual perception as a tactic to protect a vulnerable group of people. These human faces, constructed by technology, look out towards the audience.
I’ve included David France’s Welcome to Chechnya (2020) within this offshoot because I find the manner in which deepfakes are utilized endlessly fascinating. They also offer an intriguing counter to Lil Miquela, who was created to be seen, investigated, and integrated into the market. The faces created for Welcome to Chechnya were created to be seen as well but with the express intent of hiding the people underneath from the dangers of living in Chechnya.
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Throughout this section of my report I analyze deepfakes to investigate how this technology performs an anti/counter-surveillance purpose. The deepfakes allow the survivors to be recorded, while seemingly hiding in plain sight. While deepfakes do not negate extreme amounts of danger the survivors are in, they allow each survivor to regain some agency over their story and their life. In complicating this regaining of agency, each survivor does so by “wearing” someone else’s face. Previously, deepfakes were (at their best) used in humorous videos and (at their worst) to spread disinformation or swap well-known faces into pornography. In Welcome to Chechnya, deepfakes provide a counter-reading to the notion that technology has “long been and largely continues to be used to kill, corral, and brutalize already marginalized populations” (Haber 163). Welcome to Chechnya provides the opportunity to look at the way that technology, previously used to reinforce top-down power structures, can be exercised to protect marginalized populations, while also allowing for the dissemination of their story and for heightened forms of empathetic connection.
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The use of deepfake technology in Welcome to Chechnya performs three roles;
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It masks the identities of the survivors, thus protecting them from being tracked and integrated into further structures of power and discipline by Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime while allowing them to maintain their maintain their queer identity
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It blends the boundary between the real and the constructed, allowing for a permeable barrier between the survivors and audience
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It is a measure of queer activism within the power structures of technology and surveillance.
 What are Deepfakes? |  Discipline and Punish |  Queer (Dis)Information |
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 Queer Activism |  Unveiling the Queer |
Welcome to Chechnya uses deepfakes in a liberating way. What other ways has technology been used to combat State surveillance?
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