The Crimean Bridge and Infrastructural Deepfake

Abstract

Deepfake technology, widely discussed in the media as a threat, has remained on the periphery of critical scholar engagement. Bringing the deepfake into the center of my practice-based research I expose its technical limitations. These material constraints, interrogated from the perspective of critical infrastructure studies, provide fruitful perspective on deepfake as a practice of machine fictioning that could guide research on propaganda infrastructures. To situate the role deepfake could play in such investigation, I analyse an instance of propaganda (poetic, in Larkin’s terms) infrastructure, the Crimean Bridge, and overview a broader category of computational propaganda in which deepfake could be placed. The context of computational propaganda allows to show the connections between deepfake technology and other means of image doctoring, while providing a historicised criticism of western-centric preoccupation with post-truth political landscapes.