They/Them

2023 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
9:40 minutes

They/Them by Juan Obando is a video essay and deepfake that uses Adobe Stock clips, maintaining their branded watermark, but animating the scenes underneath with a narrative of self-critical awareness. It’s a meta-narrative that uses the staged scenarios (as evidence) to talk about the variable politics (and mercenary capitalism) of the stock footage industry and the misinformation dilemma we’re facing with the arrival of AI technology. In a surprising reversal, a deepfake is used to tell the truth. Using voice-cloning scripts to cast a variety of voice-types (most borrow the voices of well-known actors) Obando’s racially diverse characters articulate a critical monologue, one written by the artist but projected onto pan-international identities. The characters speak directly about their nature as stock videos, reflecting on their condition and influence. Stock footage is created by media companies and independent videographers worldwide and distributed by a small group of stock banks (aggregators). In most cases, their use is commercial—appearing in advertising campaigns for example. But in a troubling twist, more recently they’ve also been used in documentaries and other non-fiction programs, even the news. In the context of this phenomenon, Obando’s project asks: do we make our media, or does our media make us? A growing subset of stock footage featuring protests has appeared within the biggest stock data bank in the world, Adobe Stock. Scenes depicting social unrest in the US are mainly produced abroad, from Milan, Ukraine, Latvia and Spain (among others). Only one of the clips in Obando’s video is actually shot in the US. Stock video creators have recognized a demand for this footage category, and have set out to meet that demand. Accordingly, these creators invest in professional actors, props, and locations that replicate—and potentially amplify—US-specific conflicts from the past few years. Political causes such as #blacklivesmatter, #defundthepolice, and #notmypresident appear in these staged videos. The implication here is that nothing is sacred, even committed positions worth of public protests are subject to absorption by global capital, and for the citizens of the US, it comes as no surprise.

As a Colombian who studied and now lives in Arizona, Juan Obando has a non-native perspective on the media-obsessed culture of the US. His projects critically intervene in social systems, often addressing key issues of the moment. In recent years, he’s explored digital objects and screen-based installations—recognizing the screen as a site where ideology confronts aesthetics and new worlds are imagined and formed through speculative technologies.

Colors: