Untitled
Roopesh Sitharan
Medium: Audio, Cellular Organic Matter, Stereoscopic Micro Imagery, and Video (2022)
Issues: Racism, Rampant Scientifism, and Technological Colonialism
Project Links
Description
Untitled examines the construction and normalization of racialized human body as perpetuated by emerging technologies. Specifically, it reflects on how computerized algorithms have taken over human activities and transaction – and in doing so enforces certain value based on the quantification of data that enforces a racialized identity upon human subject. Such technologies objectify humanity by recognizing and categorizing people based on their physical features and attributes – akin to the stereotypes, pseudo-science and wild conjecture that was coalesced to form racism during the colonial period. Pushing this to the extreme, this work is created by probing over the skin of the artist under the microscope, meticulously going through the epidermis to find a marking that would identity the racial category.
Untitled critiques tropes of identification that shape, influence and even coerce the subjectivity of individuals. It is a reflection on how technologies such as AI and Machine Learning are used to quantify human subjects, and in doing so sustain certain epistemological tropes of racialism that are stemming from the legacies of colonialism. The artist used a microscope camera to focus on a piece of his skin, ever going deeper, intensely objectify his appearance under the penetrating eyes of the technology. The accompanying audio recording is of strangers trying to identify the artist’s nationality based on his appearance. These two elements (the video of the microscope and audio of strangers) are deliberately brought together to point out the postcolonial technologies of power. Untitled decolonializes the construction of standardized identification that not only perpetuates imperialistic ideas but even gives rise to new normalities of cultural practice that would stereotype people.
The use of technology, stereoscopic micro imagery for the opaque and cellular micro imagery is a deliberate move – to reverse (perhaps even invalidate) technology by pointing out the inherent value of colonial epistemology that has become the foundation for knowledge. Untitled raises questions about marginalization caused by racism, especially under the pretext of technological determinism. This by default perpetuates eugenic practice under the disguise of security and scientific progress. Untitled is inseparable from social justice as technologies such as facial recognition and automated profiling system disproportionately identify non-white bodies as risk and danger. The work is created as a direct response to these unjust practices, as personally experienced by the artist and consciously critiquing the potency of the race idea.
Bio
Roopesh Sitharan is an artist, curator, researcher, and educator who specializes in New Media art and cultural studies. Currently he is based at the Faculty of Creative Multimedia, Multimedia University. He has participated in several local and international projects, exhibitions and residencies that engage with the question of research, art practice and the possibilities of artist in critically encountering/questioning real world problems. He has also curated numerous projects, most recently a collaborative project between Malaysia and Indonesia called Lintas_Laut that was exhibited at Kapallorek Art Space, Malaysia.