27/08/2026
Work by Yuehan Dai now on show as part of ๐๐๐๐ผ๐ฝ๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ a NYUAD MFA Thesis Exhibition 2026
What constitutes humanness, and what happens when machines are given the authority to answer that question?
โ๐ช๐ด๐๐ถ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ(๐ช๐ฏ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ต)โ is a hypothetical algorithm designed to determine whether someone is human. As artificial intelligence increasingly imitates human language, reasoning, and social behavior, the boundary between human and machine becomes ambiguous. The project investigates how systems designed to identify humans simultaneously redefine what being human means. As technological infrastructures classify identity, the criteria for recognizing someone as human are reshaped in the process.
The installations take the form of a series of verification systems, each proposing a different criterion by which humanness might be recognized. In one work, visitors must repeatedly complete CAPTCHA challenges in order to pass through a gate. In another, AI agents are placed within a simulated environment where their social behaviors are observed over time. A DNA-based sculpture examines biological data as a machine-readable form of identity, even though a human observer cannot determine humanness from it. A classroom installation turns the question back on humans, recreating a real examination setting centered on a prompt once given to high school students: โIf you could choose one word to prove that you are not AI, which word would you choose?โ
Together, these installations function as a thought experiment. Each proposes humanness as a different decision problem โ a yes/no question posed to a system, testing whether human identity can be reduced to a computable set of conditions. The resulting contradictions, exclusions, and failures reveal the limits of treating humanness as something that can be algorithmically verified.
Only 5 days left to see these incredible installations in person!
๐๏ธ On view until: 31 August 2026
๐ Rizq Art Gallery, Leaf Tower, Abu Dhabi
