As technology plays an increasingly important role in various aspects of human life, S.E.A. Focus, a leading platform and art market hub dedicated to Southeast Asian contemporary art, is set to hold "Serial And Massively Parallel" from Saturday to Jan 28, at 39 Tanjong Pagar Distripark in Singapore. Commissioned by the National Arts Council Singapore, S.E.A. Focus is a key event in the Singapore Art Week calendar, marking the city's signature visual arts season. For its sixth edition, S.E.A. Focus features artworks from 22 galleries and over 40 artists from around the world.
John Tung, a curator with extensive experience through his work with Singapore Art Museum, Singapore Biennale, Singapore International Photography Festival and numerous other independent engagements, spoke on his curatorial approach.
"As digital technology and artificial intelligence increasingly make its mark on our life, the upcoming edition of S.E.A. Focus offers an opportune moment to reflect on its role and function amid the contemporary art ecology. That is not to say that the presentation is focused on digital, but rather the focus is on locating its place amid a breadth of practices and mediums arising from the intrinsic human impulse to connect and to create," Tung said.
Tung elaborated why the theme of the sixth edition of S.E.A. Focus explores the interplay between humanity and technology.
"Artificial intelligence is becoming a bigger part of some people's lives. It starts with a conversation about how an increasing amount of art is being created by artificial intelligence. In the realm of art, artists have to direct artificial intelligence to achieve the goals they want. We get mounting anxiety that human intelligence is going to be replaced by computers. We don't even need to go as far back as the Industrial Revolution. We can think about the early 90s when many factory workers were replaced by machines to perform simple and basic tasks. And even today, we see robot waiters becoming a familiar sight in some restaurants," he explained.
John Tung, a curator of S.E.A. Focus 2024.
"The question that a lot of people ask is whether artificial intelligence is going to replace the human mind. I don't think so. We want to get a sense of the place of technology in the world today, but more importantly we should ask the question what defines a human being. I don't think it's so much about competing intelligence, but rather the aesthetic experience. A robot and a computer are not able to have an aesthetic experience the way a human does.
"The title of the show, 'Serial And Massively Parallel', is a reference to how the human mind works, which is a very specific reference to the functions of the human brain as opposed to a computer, which is largely serial in nature. The show really talks about what art is in this new age, and at the same time, also asks the question of how prevalent is this artificial intelligence? How prevalent is this technology that we are talking about?"
While many people are concerned that artificial intelligence is able to create digital art, Tung emphasised that he does not believe AI will ever be able to replace artists.
"AI is unable to initiate anything on its own. Artists still have to give it a command. I don't think we will ever reach a Skynet scenario like in the movie Terminator. When we asked ChatGPT about its emotional response, it replied that it did not have an emotional response. And that's missing a very big part of art."
The Weight Of The Rest Of Us by Ella Mendoza.
Like other technologies which can help people to work easier, artists used AI as a tool for creating their artwork. At S.E.A Focus, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a Thai filmmaker and artist, presents A Conversation With The Sun which is an AV installation.
"Apichatpong co-developed the installation with an MIT researcher who worked on an early version of ChatGPT. Through this installation, the artist has conservations with different entities such as Salvador Dali and Krishnamurti, individuals that you can no longer have a conversation with, as well as non-human entities such as the Sun," explained Tung.
Although the theme of S.E.A. Focus involves technology, it does not exclusively focus on art created with technology. Viewers will see traditional art as well.
"A lot of artworks are a direct response to discussions about how artificial intelligence has actually not proliferated as we think it has. There are places where artificial intelligence does not mean anything to people. What we are showing at the fair is a snapshot of what is being made in contemporary times. While this new kind of artificial intelligence is at the forefront of everybody's minds, after looking at all of the artworks presented, we will find that artificial intelligence and technological works actually make up a very small percentage of everything that artists are creating in the world today," said Tung.
The Philippines' Poklong Anading, Malaysia's Tan Zi Hao and Singapore's Aiman are further highlights of S.E.A. Focus.
Anading presents his light box photographs in the Anonymity series.
Anonymity features an individual who is getting a photograph taken, but the face is completely obscured because the individual is holding up a mirror. The flash from the camera essentially makes the faces of those individuals disappear from the image itself. This body of work is about the idea of image generation and decisiveness.
Malaysia's Tan Zi Hao created a hanging installation, Bags Of Stories, which was inspired by household casebearers, a type of moth. This insect lives in a case during the larval stage, which is created from household dust. Tung explained that Bags Of Stories is used as a metaphor -- whatever household casebearers use to construct their homes is a reflection of what we consume.
Tung said that Aiman, an interdisciplinary Singaporean artist, deals with a broad range of subjects.
"For this new body of work, he drew a lot of inspiration from the curatorial statement. He also explores what being human is fundamentally. In many of his past works, he made references to biblical kings in the creation of his paintings, but I think this time, he looked at something even more fundamental than genesis stories," he said.
Anonymity works by Poklong Anading.
As the curator of S.E.A. Focus, Tung hopes that viewers will gain an opportunity to think deeper at the showcase.
"It offers them an opportunity to think deeper, harder, and to look carefully at the circumstances we're in. It's so easy to be swayed by what we hear, what we read and what we see in the media -- like artificial intelligence as a huge thing. But within Southeast Asia, think how many people do not have access to internet? How is artificial intelligence going to be a part of their everyday experience of life? The point of having a curated showcase of Southeast Asian art is to really allow an opportunity for deeper reflection and thinking about our everyday circumstances. It's not just thinking about the present, but we're also thinking about the histories and what the future might hold. At the end of the day, I hope people can walk away with a better understanding of what it means to be human, and how art plays a very big part in defining our humanity," Tung concluded.
S.E.A. Focus' "Serial And Massively Parallel" runs from Saturday to Jan 28 at 39 Tanjong Pagar Distripark in Singapore. Admission fee is SGD$10 (263 baht). (Free admission for local/overseas students and children aged below seven). For more information, visit facebook.com/SEAFocusSG.
#2e3a42 by Aiman.
Bags Of Stories by Tan Zi Hao.
