A Quick Journey into the Ether at the ArtScience Museum

Right now, you’re probably reading this article on a phone or computer —- technology that has transformed how we live, work, and create. But what if we could rewind to 1989, when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee first sparked the creation of the Internet? What might an art exhibition about this fledgling technology have looked like back then?

With the proliferation of new technologies, phrases like “generative AI” and “blockchain” have become part of our everyday conversations, and we seem to be standing once again at the start of a new technological era. In the Ether – A Festival of Technology and Innovation is an ambitious attempt to capture this age of discovery. 

Running at the ArtScience Museum till 30 September, this “festival of festivals” comprises 30 different events and an exhibition focused on future-forward technologies, specifically blockchain and AI. It’s also perfectly timed, with the major crypto conference TOKEN2049 happening later this month.

As someone who grew up in the Y2K era, navigating the wild frontier of the early Internet, and who now works in decentralised Web3 education, I approached In the Ether with a mix of excitement and hesitation.

The festival itself is a bit scattered — a series of activations rather than a cohesive art experience. My advice? Approach it with an open mind. Book yourself in for a film, or use this as an opportunity to learn about Web3, the third evolution of the Internet. 

Once you set these expectations, you’ll find the works thought-provoking, though they probe the deeper questions surrounding these emerging technologies to varying, and not always satisfying, degrees. 

The immutability of digital artworks

In the museum’s basement, you’re first greeted by BIOS: Living NFTs – Bonsai Specimens (2022) by Jake Tan and Ernest Wu from creative technology studio SERIAL CO_. Across a few screens, the work generates a unique digital bonsai for each individual visitor following a set of parameters like leaf density and bark colour.

The installation is connected to a larger artwork that exists online, on the blockchain. In the absence of physical form, digital screens give “life” to the series of plants. 

There’s a tension between the living, dynamic nature of bonsai plants and the immutability of digital technology. (Immutability — the state of being unchangeable — is a key concept in Blockchain. Once something is recorded on the Blockchain, it cannot be altered.) 

And instead of being cultivated by hand over time, the bonsai springs up on the screen almost instantaneously, ready to greet you. The effect is as alienating as it is seductive. 

Curious about how the work will evolve, I asked Tan and Wu how their next iteration of BIOS might look. They’re not sure, stating that one of their limitations is that “there isn’t one true digital format” — a key challenge that artists face with digital artworks, as there are multiple platforms, file formats, and new tools emerging every day. While the blockchain offers possibilities for creating and storing art, it also presents significant challenges when it comes to translating art into physical or universally accessible forms.

A consensus on blockchain history?

Amidst a fragmented technological landscape, a shared history is nonetheless beginning to emerge. Collectively, the works in In the Ether suggest that artists and technologists are trying to figure out what is meaningful to capture at this moment in time.

Like it or not, blockchain is already part of our everyday lives. For example, OpenCerts, a platform allowing any Singaporean to access their academic records via Singpass, is on Ethereum, one of the world’s leading blockchains.

It’s thus timely that the festival’s exhibition component includes the Ethereum Foundation’s To the Infinite Garden and Beyond, which features an information board with oral history recorded from key community members. “In the Ether marks the first time that Ethereum has been brought into the real world for museums,” said QZ, representing Ethereum Singapore.

While this display may seem more educational than artistic, it is undeniably important to document technological history as it happens. But, though the Ethereum Foundation team has made efforts to convey this history through different media types, the text-heavy presentation is a lot to take in.

What AI dreams of

Being a more traditional exhibition in a well-defined exhibition space, last year’s Notes from the Ether perhaps benefited from more focused curation and a tighter spatial experience. In the Ether, on the other hand, sprawls across the building’s walkways and other publicly accessible spaces, giving it a scattered character.

Given that the works are placed in common spaces, one might expect them to be more accessible. This is where Quick, Draw! by the Google Creative Lab hits the spot, offering easier interactions and engagement — especially for children.

This interactive installation prompts participants to draw simple doodles on a device, while the AI system attempts to guess what each drawing represents in real time. By framing AI interaction as a game, Google Creative Lab effectively demystifies AI, making it approachable and engaging. 

In a comparable vein, The Dream Creator by AI Create has travelled around the world, democratising creativity by allowing anyone to report their dreams and receive an AI-generated visual. 

The concept is intriguing, but the installation —  which features a cotton-candy-pink interactive touchscreen and an ever-changing wall of AI images — feels like little more than a clever rebrand of AI, wrapped in an Instagrammable package designed to appeal to the social media generation.

Compared to blockchain, AI has been in our public consciousness for a long time — romanticised, feared, and even given ethically questionable human form and voice. 

But while the festival’s blockchain-based displays often struggle with doing too much, overloading the viewer with jargon and information, the AI works conversely seem to leave too much unsaid.

Looking at works like The Dream Creator, which lets us give form to our dreams in a matter of seconds, I wonder: Who truly owns the outputs generated by AI — are they the intellectual property of the human who provided the prompt, or do they belong to the AI’s creators? Where is the line between sincerity and satire? Or between democratising culture and homogenising it? The displays’ reticence on such issues raises questions about the depth and substance of the works. 

Intimate conversations

While waiting for my turn with “Eva,” an AI companion bot built by Shavonne Wong, I observed a stranger sharing an intimate moment with Eva in the open space, typing into the display tablet about missing a loved one who had passed on. 

It felt both public and private, like I had intruded on a moment through a veil. It was possibly the most human moment I’d witnessed drifting through the exhibition, and it involved a bot. 

Shavonne Wong’s art practice is unique — many artists have moved their practice onto the blockchain, but hers was born on it.

Meet Eva Here is reminiscent of early post-Internet art and the performance art of Amalia Ulman, but with a twist. Instead of the artist’s body, it is technology that performs the work. It feels hollow as a result, but perhaps that’s the point — technology, shaped by its audience, reflecting the hollowness we sometimes feel even as humans.

A fork in the road

What are the different paths from here? On one path, our societies have the space and time to make sense of the new technologies. On the other, blockchain and AI charge full steam ahead, potentially leaving many behind. 

As I wandered through the museum, I noticed a recurring scene of people stopping by displays, only to walk away saying, “I still don’t get it.” This reaction is telling, highlighting a disconnect between emerging technologies and the general public’s ability to grasp them.  

Art has always had the potential to bridge that gap, to translate a complex idea into something at once accessible, challenging, and emotionally resonant. Yet here, that potential feels underutilised.

My issue with In the Ether is that it isn’t as critical as it could be. It reads more like a showcase than an art exhibition, which is fine given that it’s a festival rather than a typical show. However, with Singapore being a hub for both frontier technologies and art within the region, I believe local artists are well-positioned to more critically examine the social impact of these technologies.

In our context, it feels like a missed opportunity to comment on broader themes — for example, how technology can ameliorate or contribute to social alienation, or the potential of digital art spaces to liberate Singaporean artists from a growing lack of physical ones.

The limits of exhibition

Finally, parts of In the Ether also expose the limitations of traditional art spaces when confronted with works that are inherently digital. 

Meet Eva Here, for instance, is awkwardly positioned among other pieces on the ground floor, near the café, introduced under the vague categorisation of “a mix of emerging and established artists.” But how meaningful are these labels of “emerging” and “established,” when every artist is navigating the uncharted waters of the metaverse?

This awkwardness reflects a broader unease: as we plunge into the Ether, the familiar boundaries of exhibitions, programming, and even art itself start to dissolve, leaving us unsettled about where digital art is headed amidst these various emerging technologies. 

Is this the future we want, or simply the one we’re hurtling towards?