Close Encounters Of The AI Kind

IDENTITY IS MULTIVALENT: You could feel like a rockstar one minute and a deadbeat the next. You could be dazzling people with your professional work persona and be a complete couch potato at home. Your identity is the sum of various social, political and personal influences, from how you were raised to what music you listen to on Spotify.

This diversity of the self is taken to the extreme in Yang Derong's large art installation work titled Face Of The Day, which features some 369 self-portraits of the artist dressed in a mind-boggling array of costumes.

He impersonates famous figures (from Guanyin to Ganesha, Frida Kahlo to Yayoi Kusama) and pop culture icons (Hollywood stars, F1 drivers, SIA Girls). He marks public holidays by decking himself out in silver baubles on Christmas, donning a jubbah on Eid al-Adha, and strapping on a lederhosen in Oktoberfest. He satirises our national obsessions by balancing a tray of food on his head ("Tray chic", says the caption), posing with a very large mobile phone, and mugging with Pokemon-Go characters.