Kutuku and Kutumu
2024 | augmented reality, fabric, NFC tokens, sound recording
Through an interdisciplinary approach, the works of Koh Kai Ting (born in Malaysia, 1996) provoke critical reflection while inviting viewers of her work to re-imagine an already established paradigm, encouraging dialogue and also issues regarding social transformation.
Some of the achievements she got are the Jury Award, Bakat Muda Sezaman 23 (Young Contemporaries 23), Malaysia (2023), Mellow Art Award, Japan (2020), Malaysian Emerging Artist Awards, Malaysia (2019), and UOB Painting of the Year, Malaysia (2018).
Apart from that, Koh Kai Ting is also involved in several art projects, such as Ghetto Playground (2023), Bamboo Art Festival, Chengdu (2019) and a one-year residency program on Pulau Ketam, Malaysia (2019). Her works have been collected by the Lim Lian Geok Foundation, Malaysia; Naresuan University, Phitsanulok; and King Mongkrut's University of Technology North Bangkok, Thailand.
Completing her fine arts study at Guizhou University, China in 2019, Aw Boon Xin (born in Malaysia, 1995) explores the intersection of the topics of personal experience, identity, and narrative through his artistic practice. Aw Boon Xin also explores issues regarding the complexity of the relationship between human spirit, religion and politics.
In 2022, she received the Malaysian Emerging Artist Award by HOM Art Trans. Aw Boon Xin held her solo exhibition entitled INSEEN at Guizhou University Academy of Fine Arts Gallery, China (2019) and some group exhibitions Let the Game start now: In a Harsh Wind, Kapal Lorek, Malaysia (2023), Biennale of Youth Art, Guizhou, China (2019) dan The 6th Guizhou Printmaking Academic Exhibition, Guizhou Art Museum, China (2018).
The work is inspired by a play on the word palindrome, about "my lice", "your lice", and its symbiotic relationship with the human body. Lice, which is very close to us, inhabits our hair and shares blood with us. Lice is inextricably linked to our existence tracing the deeper roots of our human past and the mysterious potential of posthuman existence.
The installation invites visitors to immerse themselves in an enclosed space surrounded by bedsheets and hanging clothes. NFC tokens embedded in fabric will trigger Augmented Reality ticks. These digital creatures extract facial features from their hosts. These microscopic entities explore intimate relationships with and reflect the inherent animal nature of our bodies. At the same time, these ticks function as predictions, like how GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks) suck in a training set, a collection of images to train an AI. Therefore, Google's Deep Dream AI sees dogs in everything and becomes "more dog-like" every time a large number of pet photos are fed into its training set.