I M U

FAQ

What is this?

This is a film-art experience which is purposefully quite mysterious. Practically it is a big black mirror screen, in front of which you can take a seat and look at yourself…or are you? Also, it’s been said that it’s a bit scary.

What is this about then?

It’s about you, it’s about me, it’s about humans meeting technology, it’s about the future, it’s about manipulation, it’s about us.

Who would you recommend partaking in this, whatever this is?

The intellectually curious and brave.

Could you say a bit more?

No. Better to just experience it yourself.

Where can I find it?

At the moment we are finalising the production of v3.0. The work took a big step with this version. We’ll announce its premiere and further exhibitions on this website.

Who is ‘we’?

That’s our team consisting artist-filmmaker-cum-software engineer Juul van der Laan, composer Kit Wilmans Fegradoe, with the help of creative programmers (v1.0-2.0) Luuk Schipperheyn, (v2.1) Jan Misker, (v3.0) CasiCode.

I M U is co-produced by V2_ Lab for the unstable media. studio thnkthnk is the over-all production studio of the work, run by Juul van der Laan.

You use a “deepfake algorithm”, which falls under the “AI” category. Doesn’t that mean you are harming the environment and that there are privacy concerns?

This question is on point. Most AI applications today are created, managed and run by Big Tech. The way they construct and run data centers is an exponentially serious environmental concern. Also they engage in ethically questionable extractive practices regarding user data and artists’ works. I M U does not run on any Big Tech (linked) services. We’ve built our application on open source code, run everything locally and offline. The deepfake model has been trained on a dataset called “VoxCeleb” which has been created at Oxford University. The deepfake algorithm itself was developed by Shuling Zhao(1),  Fa-Ting Hong(1), Xiaoshui Huang(2), Dan Xu(1) from (1)The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and (2)Shanghai Jiao Tong University and called “synergize motion appearance”. They kindly gave me permission to use it in this film-artwork. All data recorded and generated in the experience will be deleted upon exit, it will not be used for anything other than your personal experience. 

Where have you presented I M U before?

Our very first prototype was presented during a summer of ’22 Kunstavond at WORM, Rotterdam (NL). It was blazing hot at 34 degrees celsius, we had to cool our computer (Juuls old iMac) with ice cubes (no joke) – but it worked! And we thank our open minded and involved first audience for their responses to it.
After a short break we developed prototype v2.0 as part of the Winter Sessions residency at V2_ in 2024 (NL). Furthermore Juul was selected to showcase the I M U project via an online presentation at the DOKLeipzig 2023 XR conference (DE). Then she won the New Tech Pitch award at DocsBarcelona 2024 (ES). V2.1 standalone audience tests took place at Wageningen University (NL) from May to July 2024, where students and staff could experience the work without any additional guidance. V2.2, for the first time including the iconic green tent, was exhibited at Ars Electronica Festival 2024 (AT). I M U was also part of the 2024 official selection to be pitched at the IDFA DocLab Forum (NL). In 2025 I M U was pitched in the heart of Paris at the NewImages festival (FR). But, alongside all the pitching to keep the business side of things moving, people could also visit the work again: v2.2 was exhibited at the Eye Filmmuseum in 2025 on the riverbank of Amsterdam (NL). Keep an eye out for the release of the upgraded version 3.0 …