Rachel Maclean's Deepfake "DUCK" | ARTISTS' PROJECTS

“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and acts like a duck, then it is, most probably, a duck.” Of course, when it comes to the work of Scottish artist Rachel Maclean, deception is the delightful dish du jour, the crux upon which her green-screened worlds are so often built. One of the highlights of 2024’s International Film Festival Rotterdam was undoubtedly Maclean’s hilarious and bewildering video installation, DUCK, which features every James Bond throughout the franchise’s long history, as well as Marilyn Monroe-all played by Maclean herself, via the wonders of deepfake technology. In this exclusive excerpt for Artforum, we’re offered a tantalizing glimpse of the ways in which Maclean illuminates the potentialities of deepfake as a new medium alongisde this interview with Maclean by Oskar Oprey.
-Travis Jeppesen