‘This gap opens up of doubt and scepticism about everything’: Jess and Morgs confront the politics of deepfakes

It appears the interviewer has got him on the ropes. “For the record, I did not take part in a pagan ceremony with minor members of the royal family in which we daubed ourselves in paint,” states the beleaguered politician, caught outside Buckingham Palace with his flies undone and forced to defend himself. This is a fabrication, of course – I’m watching the scene play out in an east London dance studio – but it doesn’t feel miles away from something that could be true. And how do we know what’s the truth anyway? That’s the question in Deepfake, the latest piece from award-winning dance duo Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple, AKA Jess and Morgs.

The pair tell modern stories with ambitious tech – film and live camera work – and often techy themes, too. “We’ve always been drawn to where there’s a crossover between the theme and the form,” says Runacre-Temple. “What gets us excited is seeing the contemporary world reflected back.” The pair scored a massive hit with their 2022 piece Coppélia, made for Scottish Ballet, which turned a twee 19th-century ballet about a dancing doll into a cautionary tale of AI automatons and unrestrained tech bro egos. Definitely not one-hit wonders, earlier this year they made their debut at the highly esteemed Paris Opera Ballet.

Deepfake is set in a green-screen studio, where the interview is taking place between a cool-headed journalist and a politician. With writer Jeff James, Jess and Morgs looked at a wealth of TV interviews, from Jeremy Paxman’s 1997 grilling of Michael Howard, where he asked the same question 12 times, to the former prince Andrew’s disastrous turn on Newsnight. They also took inspiration from the current ultra-media-trained politicos who “continually and bombastically evade any questions at all”, says Wright.

They liked the way the television interview is already a theatrical setup, says Wright. “I think there’s something fun about putting that on stage and asking the audience to engage with the theatricality as well.” It’s gladiatorial drama in smart tailoring. “It’s really high stakes; it’s win or lose for both of them,” adds Wright.

In the show, the interview will be filmed live by four cameras – then, as well as seeing what’s happening in reality, the audience will watch another version on screen with background footage edited in. We’ll be privy to the fabrication of the image and a number of possible realities. There are also seven dancers in green-screen suits who manipulate the environment but will disappear in the edit.

As Runacre-Temple says, green screen can actually look quite lo-fi – “It’s got that slightly absurd, playful, silent movie quality about it” – and it’s ancient tech compared with the kind of AI deepfakes that are emerging today. “They look so hyper real,” says Runacre-Temple. “The danger of deepfakes is not only that people believe things that aren’t true to be real, but that they start to disbelieve things that are true, and this gap opens up of doubt and scepticism about everything.” Or, as in their story, someone who has been caught out doing something they shouldn’t can insist it’s a fake image. “It’s really about the strange shifting relationship with the landscape of truth.”

I go to visit rehearsals on a day when there’s no tech in sight, bar a couple of laptops. “It’s good to go analogue to actually finish the choreography,” says Wright, wryly, counting the diminishing days to the premiere. All we have is an enormous studio and two incredible dancers: Rebecca Bassett-Graham, best known for dancing with Wayne McGregor’s company, who is playing the journalist; and as the politician, Kennedy Junior Muntanga, who has worked with Akram Khan.

The text plays in voiceover while the two dancers embody and expand on its meaning. Their quick-fire movements visualise all the dynamics of a charged conversation: charm, challenge, cooperation, accusation, entrapment, etc. The feel is freewheeling, but each movement is tightly mapped to the syllable, every flex of muscle is considered. In certain scenes with the green screen, dancers will have to hit exact marks and even eyelines on exact words “or the whole illusion collapses”, says Wright. They’re creating their own high-stakes environment for the performers, where “the dancers’ virtuosity is a metaphor for these very virtuosic performances in interviews”.

Will this battle have a winner? Can we believe what we see? Jess and Morgs aren’t giving any spoilers. “Hopefully it will be surprising and mischievous,” says Runacre-Temple.