Jenkin van Zyl on deepfakes, replication and rogue AI agents
Avant-garde filmmaker and installation artist Jenkin van Zyl discusses his debut scripted work, a dystopian film installation opening at Somerset House Studios in London. The piece follows a character returning to an abandoned fairground-laboratory facility to confront her digitally replicated double, exploring themes of technological anxiety, bodily extremes, and doppelgänger psychology. Van Zyl, trained at the RA Schools, has long merged moving image with immersive physical installation, often incorporating gore and fetishistic aesthetics. Shot across Cold War bunkers and a defunct polytechnic, Enclosure employs stop-motion animation and tactile set fabrication to create anachronistic decay. The artist treats anxieties about AI acceleration and technological obsolescence through playful, Gothic-inflected aesthetics, featuring longtime collaborator Agnieszka Szczotka in a character arc tracing architectural and aesthetic deterioration from contemporary to Victorian-gothic registers.
Original article published on Dazed — AI-generated summary. Visit the website to read the full article at the source. Image via Dazed.
