THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND EVOLUTION OF DESIRE THROUGH SYNTHETIC MEDIA

Abstract

he specter of deepfakes and artificial intelligence enabled media productioncontinues to exacerbate the fear brought on by a degraded ability to discern the real from the fake, syn- thetic, or fabricated in a networked society. While these fears are well-founded especially as they pertain to issues of involuntary pornography their introduction into an already oversaturated media landscape, if anything, extended trends in mediated indeterminacy already being fostered by the universalization of social media platforms. Sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, made more explicit the contingency and per- formative nature of identity. As younger generations came of age through social media they learned how to navigate and present themselves through it in novel ways unique to each platform. Oftentimes, these strategies were harmful to people’s perception of themselves and their mental health. Other times, however, it gave them the ability to experiment with new forms of identity more in line with how they actually felt. Further, more experimentation through ubiquitous mediation extended what kinds of identities are possible in general as well. In turn, the discovery and extension of identity has led to the evolution of desire. Identities and desires hitherto not possible in a physical space precipitated the creation of new objects of desire that can be pursued and materially experienced regardless of their virtual nature. Deepfakes, and now generative AI, anticipate a further, exponentially more complicated relationship with identity and desire formation through the adoption of increasingly unreal presentations of each.