Content Warning: This story contains mentions of nudity and suicide.
The School of Communication’s CommConnections event on Feb. 18 titled “Teaching, Playing, & Performing with AI” served as an educational lecture and display of interdisciplinary collaboration across the school. Faculty, staff and students attended the event in Wirtz 201 in the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts.
But when event speaker and Communication Prof. Thomas DeFrantz played a video of a dance performance in which DeFrantz’s genitals were exposed without warning, the event also sparked debate surrounding content warnings and nudity in performance among some Northwestern staff members.
Isaac Jones — a former NU staff member who asked to use a pseudonym for fear of retaliation — said he was “shocked” by the absence of a warning.
“I don’t think anyone knew what to do,” Jones said.
DeFrantz’s controversial performance at CommConnections
DeFrantz is a professor in theatre and performance studies at NU, and also directs the SLIPPAGE lab, which explores the intersection between performance and emerging technology.
As the third speaker of the afternoon, DeFrantz began with a dance to “Urban Disconnect,” a song the professor told attendees was generated by artificial intelligence that morning.
DeFrantz’s lecture primarily discussed using AI to assist in the performing arts. During the lecture, DeFrantz showcased a video clip of a project in development titled “,,,lonely (2-1)…” The piece involves AI-generated surroundings that change based on varying “intensities” exerted by the dancer — in this case, DeFrantz. Motion and heat sensors monitor what occurs onstage, and the background changes accordingly, DeFrantz said.
In the clip, DeFrantz mentions feelings of loneliness and a disdain for online therapy, which led into a dance performance to “Focus” by H.E.R.
About two minutes and twenty seconds into the video of the performance, DeFrantz — profile to the camera and audience — lifted up a long shirt and pulled a pair of underwear below waist level, exposing DeFrantz’s penis. DeFrantz then hit DeFrantz’s penis in the air repeatedly with the band of the underwear. After around 10 seconds, DeFrantz dropped the shirt back down, and the clip ended shortly afterward.
DeFrantz told The Daily it was “confusing” and “distressing” to learn the clip caused controversy, arguing the video contains “nothing provocative.” Those concerned by the video performance played at the event have characterized it as nudity, DeFrantz said. But DeFrantz claimed there was “no nudity like that,” as nudity involves “an ongoingness” of being undressed that the performance lacked.
The video dance performance involved a character dealing with suicidal thoughts and whether they should stay or go, DeFrantz said, with the end of the piece working through the idea of “disappearing.”
“This is the kind of research that it’s possible to do with the support of a physician to ask a question about, ‘What would it be for a character who’s the only person on a stage or in an environment to dissemble and to disappear?’” DeFrantz said.
Overall, the piece touches on the loneliness epidemic and a lack of connection, and the actions in the piece are meant “to evoke empathetic response,” according to DeFrantz.
Some staff members express concern over livestream
The lecture was also available to viewers via a livestream.
Jones, familiar with the workings of this CommConnections, said presenters, including DeFrantz, gave their presentations to the staff working the event in advance, so the staff could prepare them for the event.
Staff then checked to make sure videos and audio worked, but did not screen for content or consume the media in its entirety, Jones said.
NU livestreams events through Panopto, a technology company that Jones said is set up to stream video through Vimeo. He added that, to the best of his knowledge, the livestream also aired on YouTube as a backup.
Both Vimeo and YouTube allow some nudity for artistic purposes, although sexual content is not permitted.
“Ultimately, to me, that’s the biggest issue,” Jones said. “You streamed this live on the internet. Anyone could have seen it.”
That “anyone” includes minors, Bill Harding — an NU staff member using a pseudonym for fear of retaliation — pointed out. Although he was not in attendance at the CommConnections event, Harding heard about DeFrantz’s video through his coworkers.
Both Harding and Jones said they had no knowledge of any minors in the audience. But the livestream complicates the question of viewership by minors, they said.
Harding said “it’s absolutely possible someone had their kid on their lap” while watching the livestream.
DeFrantz’s video performance is reported to Title IX
Harding said other staff members were also “shocked” by the video, but they were hesitant to report the event to the University.
“Nobody wanted to report this because nobody thought this was sexual assault,” Harding said. “I’m like, ‘Dude, (a person) just flashed you. That’s harassment. That’s assault. That’s sexual misconduct.’ So many of the conversations I had with other staff were, ‘Well, yeah. I guess it is, huh?’”
Harding added that it was “scary” how some of his coworkers failed to recognize the video as a form of sexual misconduct.
Harding reported the incident to the University about a week after the event through EthicsPoint, which NU’s Report A Concern website describes as “an online system for reporting activities that may involve misconduct or violations of University Policy.” Harding said he knows “for a fact that at least one person” besides himself reported the event.
Harding said he was then directed by EthicsPoint to the University’s Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance.
After sending an email to the office including photos of DeFrantz’s video, Harding said, the office asked to sit down with him to discuss what occurred at the event. The parties talked for about 30 minutes to an hour, according to Harding.
In an email obtained by The Daily, an official from OCR told Harding on March 5 that the office reviewed his concerns in consultation with the Interim Policy on Title IX Sexual Harassment (TIX) and Policy on Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct (PDHSM).
“OCR determined that you provided sufficient information for the matter to proceed with any of the resolution options we oversee (TIX formal investigation, Alternative Resolution, or Educational Response),” the email read. “The conduct by which the matter falls under is PDHSM sexual harassment and sexual exploitation.”
The University did not comment on the event and the Title IX inquiry. However, a University spokesperson said OCR takes “all complaints seriously and (has) processes for reviewing them.”
According to the PDHSM, “unnecessary references to parts of the body” are classified as an “example of conduct that may constitute sexual harassment.” The same guide classifies “indecent or lewd exposure” without consent as sexual exploitation.
DeFrantz also spoke to a Title IX officer after being contacted by OCR. DeFrantz said the officer acknowledged that the event was not mandatory, it was not in a classroom setting and DeFrantz was not the professor of all the attendees.
DeFrantz told The Daily that the School of Communication Office of the Dean said that although content warnings are recommended, they are not required in this case.
Communication Dean E. Patrick Johnson did not respond to The Daily’s request for comment.
DeFrantz said a lawyer for the University told DeFrantz it “sounds like” someone may be trying to “target” DeFrantz through the complaints. The University did not respond to a request for comment about this claim. According to DeFrantz, this potential targeting resembles the current “moment where artists are targeted.”
“Is this anti-Black racism? Is this homophobia? What is it?” DeFrantz said. “It was a research presentation. I don’t remember anyone under 25 to even be in the room.”
Performing arts community expresses varying opinions on content warnings
Prior to showing the video, audience members were not warned that any nudity would be shown.
This lack of advanced knowledge was one of the key concerns for Jones, who said he was “shocked” not by the content, but by the fact that audience members “weren’t given the choice” in viewing the video.
“It’s my belief that (DeFrantz) knew exactly what (DeFrantz) was doing,” Jones said. “This wasn’t an accident. I think (DeFrantz is) a provocateur, which is fine, and I want to make it clear I’m not so much offended as I am shocked and maybe disappointed that that wasn’t the right venue.”
The performing arts community is no stranger to debating the use of content warnings in performances.
Several critics and academics within the theatre community have argued that adding content warnings to live shows unnecessarily sensationalizes stories and warps audience perspectives on performances.
A 2023 comparative analysis of academic studies by researchers at Flinders University found that content warnings in theatre performances “reliably increased anticipatory affect.” The analysis found that content warnings can leave audience members anxiously anticipating distressing content, measured by elevated heart rates and aggravated medical distress.
DeFrantz said that if audiences are warned about an aspect of a performance ahead of time, then that means artists are acknowledging their material contains problematic content. But there is no way to be “in each other’s heads” and know that what is being presented may pose an issue for someone, DeFrantz said.
“I don’t like the language of ‘content warning’ because ‘warning’ makes it sound like there’s a problem. I don’t want that,” DeFrantz said. “We’re thinking together and our ideas we want to share. It’s not a warning. It’s like, ‘Hey, this might be challenging. Let’s go. Ready? Let’s think together.’”
DeFrantz’s performance polarizes attendees
Anthony Green — an NU staff member using a pseudonym in fear of retaliation — attended the event in person as an audience member.
Green said he attended purely out of interest in the event’s topic and because he knew everyone on the panel, including DeFrantz, whom he described having a “friendly relationship” with. Green said that he had seen some of DeFrantz’s works before, and that those had not included nudity.
Although he could “completely understand the artistic end of it,” Green was unsure how the performance related to the panel.
“I didn’t think it had anything to do with AI and collaborative workspaces with this technology,” Green said. “I don’t know if it was intentionally done for shock value or if this was something that Prof. DeFrantz was particularly proud of. … I know that (DeFrantz is) a well-known performance artist and well regarded, and I just took it for what it was worth.”
According to Green, the audience had a “mixed reaction” after the clip was shown. He described an awkward environment with audience members “snickering or looking awkwardly at their feet.”
However, “nobody was clutching pearls,” he said.
In conversations with coworkers after the event, however, opinions were polarized, according to Green.
“There were a couple people that were kind of pissed off about it and were like, ‘There could have been minors in the audience or could have been minors on the livestream,’” Green said. “‘If I was there, I would have been really pissed off because I had no interest in seeing this (person’s) genitals.’ It ran in that direction.”
In DeFrantz’s preparation for the event, the “terms of engagement” needed for “the event to reach its destiny” were created, DeFrantz said. DeFrantz thought the presentation was successful upon its completion, and it was “very upsetting” to learn some viewers did not agree.
“I hope that when people encounter information that challenges them, they see it as an opportunity to know differently, and not only an opportunity to complain or try to shut information and knowledge down,” DeFrantz said.
The piece was set to be premiered at Links Hall, which is now closed, but will show in San Francisco in October, according to DeFrantz. Another artist will likely perform the piece, DeFrantz said.
Although Green said the relation of the recorded performance to the panel topic was possibly “just something that went over (his) head,” he said he hopes it becomes a lesson on content warnings in NU’s performance community.
“In the end, I don’t think anybody was harmed by it, at least to the best of my knowledge, which I’m grateful for,” Green said. “But I hope that this would be taken as a learning opportunity that we really should prescreen these sorts of things and at least put some kind of warning out there when there may be adult content in these things.”
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
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