Exhibition Review: Proof of Personhood

What does it mean to be human? This age-old question holds new meaning in a highly digitised world. In Proof of Personhood at the Singapore Art Museum, a collective of local artists including Charmaine Poh, Song-Ming-Ang, and international artists Christopher Kulendran Thomas and more explore the themes of Self and authenticity in today’s artificial intelligence (AI) zeitgeist. Just how much can we view AI-generated “art”, 3D Printing and Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) as art? These artists propose its usage as explorations of critique through the aesthetics of technology, pop culture and social media. 

Like many, I was enticed by Christopher Kulendran Thomas’ AI-generated interview of Taylor Swift that was advertised through TikTok. Undeniably, it is able to grasp the audience’s attention through niche internet references. Our consumerist society opens a gateway for hyper-exposure to digital media. As a response to this information overload, the exhibition’s works have a common theme of satirising this overwhelming intake of imagery from websites, movies and literature. In Charmaine Poh’s THE YOUNG BODY UNIVERSE, she uses footage from her preteen years as a local MediaCorp actress in the early 2000s to talk about how the young female body is sexualised through social media. Because of the technological barrier between the artist and her grown, dominantly male audience, it suggests how much more sexualisation there is on the internet. She is watched for her physicality, but not seen in a humane light. Where misogyny is harder to punish, the Internet serves as breeding ground to normalise, and even glorify such behaviours. This reduction of the female body through cyborg-presenting bodies is introduced through Russell’s theory of Glitch Feminism. With the growth of capitalism in surveillance, how can we ensure our safety as women, yet find authenticity and freedom in self-expression? It is refreshing to see these progression in views in Singapore’s context, and artists like Poh have the ability to pioneer intersections of identity through the introduction of a new one: the digital native. The question is - whether the local mainstream media is ready to unveil the dark realities of placing the image of the Self in the digital domain, where authenticity is covered by a new layer of identity that can be easily created and falsified. 

William Wiebe’s works - Lily Raghda (2023), Zahra, Sheera (2023), Erika, Alessia, Sozan (2023) are a series of computer-generated photographs of Facebook Executive Sheryl Sandberg. The prompt was to depict her as a refugee in the World Economic Forum in 2017, as an alternate reality. Through the Dark Web, he obtained biometric data from stolen passports, identity cards and social media posts to generate images of Sandberg avoiding cameras and hiding from the public. This emphasises the sinister power of technology, especially over individuals with large public influence - making them more liable for intense scrutiny. I find it terrifying to be easily identified, deep-faked just from obtaining information readily accessible. Although Wiebe’s intentions are apparent in showing how even the smallest bits of information can affirm the physicality of the self in digital spaces, is it ethical to use the Dark Web, knowing the corruptive practices carried out in such platforms? Would this usage then be giving these menacing digital spaces more power to those who can access it? Then again it brings forward the issue of accessibility and mass consumption, and where our moral compass lies - should we mess with technology for art’s sake?

Overall, this exhibition provides plenty of discourse for whether or not we should accept that AI is embedded in contemporary Singapore society. The intentions still remain unclear, and the attempts at making digitisation and “glitchcore” a comical commentary may be reductive if this is the exact tool that is invading manual labour and the human spirit.