New Singapore Art Museum exhibition explores relationship between humans and technology

To delve into how our bodies negotiate and connect with technology, Singapore Art Museum (SAM) will host a new exhibition titled Can Everybody See My Screen?, located at Tanjong Pagar Distripark from Sep 9 to Dec 11.

The exhibition aims to examine the various ways in which artistic practices engage with an increasingly digitalised world, as well as how it expounds on humanity’s shared encounters with evolving technology.

It features works curated by both local and regional artists from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and China.

Among the different works, some serve to examine technology as a medium that can engender possibilities of self-identification and love. This includes Chatchai Puipia’s 1997 painting, Windows (Love Me…Love Me Not…Love Me) which offers a personal reflection on the unequal relationship underlying internet marriages.   

Liana Yang’s A Souvenir provides a different observation into the role that choice and chance play in online dating and the development of romantic relationships, through challenging visitors to insert tokens into a claw machine to win special prizes.

The exhibition also explores how physical reality can be animated, reconstructed, reimagined, and immortalised in the virtual realm. Cao Fei’s work, i.Mirror, blurs the boundary of the real and the virtual worlds, thus presenting an electronic second life as the possibility for an extended self.

Visitors can design their “digital selves” by using a suite of pixel swatches created by the artist through an arcade machine placed at the reception area. One may only obtain their avatar in printed form, which they can then exchange with friends or display it for public view.

Some works will also directly engage visitors’ bodies, such as Chong Kim Chiew’s Unreadable Wall which blocks the way of an entrance to the exhibition space.

Alongside the displayed works, programmes such talks, curator tours and craft activities suitable for all ages will also be held at the exhibition. 

Admission to the exhibition is free of charge. The full list of works can be found on SAM’s website.