Throughout the history of visual arts, human being has been a popular subject of study. People have been depicted not only as physical beings but also through their role in society. Artists have also explored philosophical ideas about the nature of being human and the possible unifying factors between individuals; the shared experience of humanity.The exhibition includes various portrayals of people from the museum’s collections and media art by visual artist Jukka Hautamäki.
The way people have been depicted in art reveals ideas and attitudes about how being human has been perceived. The topic can be approached by asking: how and from whose point of view the subject has been depicted, who the subjects are, and who have been excluded, or at the very least marginalised, and who has been considered worthy of being immortalised in art?
It is also interesting to consider whether the subject had the opportunity to influence how they are seen and presented. Do they have a name, or do they represent some predefined group?
Jukka Hautamäki’s works discuss what visual art will be like in the future: who will make it, how, and to whom will it be displayed? In his media art pieces portraits are generated with the help of neural networks and artificial intelligence, and they form an uninterrupted, constantly evolving continuum. Hautamäki has used self-portraits and synthetically created faces as training images for artificial intelligence.
