The Taipei Dangdai Art Fair, Taiwan’s largest international art fair, is once again hosted in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan with the theme ‘Pulling the Plug’. Held from May 8 to 10, this exhibition presents three large installation artworks that explore the ethical, psychological, and environmental impacts AI technology and digital tools cast on human society.
This exhibition visually unravels the critical issues arising from AI, such as technologization of power, surveillance society, identity dissolution, and data bias. It is not merely an introduction to digital art, but a planned exhibit demonstrating how the East Asian art world is engaging in dialogue with AI.
The representative piece of this exhibition is ‘UTTERING’ (2023) by Paris-based new media artist Shu Lea Cheang, who describes it as the ‘self-portrait of AI.’ The character within the artwork continuously changes skin color, hair, gender, and eye shape, rejecting a fixed identity. A ball gag in its mouth symbolizes silence, while the keyboard keys protruding from its mouth indicate how algorithms can misrepresent human expression. It visually questions who holds the ethical boundaries dictated by AI and its control authority.
The second piece, ‘Space Warriors and the Digigrave’, is created by Su Hui-Yu in collaboration with the digital collective XTRUX. The work combines open-source AI tools with traditional film techniques, showcasing how military propaganda subtly infiltrates digital media. It intertwines personal memory with Taiwan’s past sci-fi film culture, reminding viewers of how today’s media environment is vulnerable to misinformation and emotional manipulation.
Lastly, Zhang Xu Zhan presents an animation depicting a termite colony consuming wires post-ecological change. Coming from a family of traditional papercraft artisans, Zhang provides a unique perspective by merging folklore with digital techniques while addressing the climate crisis.
This exhibition is not merely a technological discourse consumed within the art community but a restructured overview of the global social debate surrounding AI from an East Asian perspective. Korea, too, faces issues of ethics, control, and identity amidst the proliferation of generative AI. This exhibition demonstrates how art can respond to these challenges.
Meanwhile, Taipei Dangdai has focused on enhancing the quality of the exhibition despite reducing its scale. The number of participating galleries dropped from 78 last year to 51 this year. However, the participation of globally renowned galleries such as Almine Rech and Karsten Greve draws attention. Familiar names like Galleria Continua and Galerie EIGEN + ART are also returning. Taiwan’s representative galleries, Tina Keng, Ichimodern, and Asia Art Center, are also listed.