Fieldwork as a Sex Object by Meena Kandasamy follows a young Indian woman in London as she tries to reclaim her reputation after her image is circulated in a deepfake porno. It is a provocative, witty, fearless and satirical novel.
When the acquisition announcement first came in for this title, I was intrigued by the contemporary internet culture aspect and the title. I hoped to be assigned to the cover design. The threat of deepfakes and AI in general feels relevant to the current moment and I was intrigued by the possibility of exploring that with cover design.
I was indeed assigned to this cover and had some trepidation upon reading the cover memo since there were a few strong covers on the memo including the UK cover for Fieldwork, designed by Kishan Rajani, whose work I admire. After reading the manuscript, I felt his cover did the job quite nicely and it was a bit tricky getting that image out of my head so I could begin anew for the American edition.
I wanted to do something clever with technology and internet culture while also making the cover feel suggestive without being raunchy. My first ideas centered around computer folders and cursors. As I developed the concepts, I started experimenting with pixelation as a way to suggest something explicit. I then moved into making the title out of little hand shaped cursors.. I liked the suggestion of all those hands clicking, it conveyed the virality of the deepfake and the sense that everyone had their virtual hands on it.
The idea behind the chosen direction (below) suggests something similar to the idea behind the many little cursors. The deepfake is being viewed, copied, circulated over and over again. The repetition into infinity is also meant to convey the daunting and ultimately doomed task Amy faces in trying to erase the deepfake from the internet.
