Xu Bing: You Inhuman Thing

The story of _You Inhuman Thing_ is structured around verification tests, the common online systems that ask users to prove they are human. The work shows a frenetic sequence of video clips drawn from social media feeds, news broadcasts, films, satellite surveillance footage, wildlife documentaries, and video games. These tests ask us to decide whether the actions depicted in the clips are humane, ethical, or logical, subverting our assumptions about normal human behaviour. The title _You Inhuman Thing_ comes from a Chinese insult that describes someone as heartless or cold-blooded. Yet the work invites us to reconsider what it means to be human. As technology complicates seemingly simple value judgements, does our understanding of our own species remain valid? Xu Bing explores themes of language, communication, and cultural misunderstanding in his work. _You Inhuman Thing_ complements his new interactive web-based commission on the M+ website.