Wereledmuseum Amsterdam's exhibition on Dutch colonial history lacks sufficient representation of indigenous perspectives. To address this, we consulted with individuals of colonial descent and developed an interactive AI installation that allows visitors to reimagine the artworks, aiming for a more balanced narrative.
The
Wereldmuseum
During my Master's program, we delved into the future of user interfaces, specifically focusing on Ephemeral Interfaces. Ephemeral interfaces are characterized by their temporal nature and context-dependency, enabling them to provide highly individualized experiences.
Interestingly, we explored this vision of the future in a place of the past: The Wereldmuseum Amsterdam is a former colonial institution, set up in 1926 to promote Dutch colonies. Here, colonial plunder and racist propaganda was exhibited for decades. Today, the museum is trying to come to terms with its past and take a critical look at colonial history: Their new permanent exhibition “Our Colonial Inheritance“ pays attention to the continued effects of the Dutch colonial past. We explored the field of Ephemeral Interfaces in the context of this exhibition.
As an introduction to the topic, I read the book “Discourse on Colonialism“ by Aimé Césaire. It exposes the effects of colonialism on both the colonized and the colonizers. Césaire, who himself grew up in a French colony, argues that colonialism not only destroys the exploited people, but also corrupts the moral and spiritual constitution of Western civilization.
Colonial
Amnesia
Reflecting on the Western discourse about colonialism within the team, it became clear once again how distorted and incomplete colonial history is taught and discussed in Europe. Not to mention the ignorance and apathy of Western governments regarding the cruelty of modern colonialism in all its brutality.
However, we did not expect the same to apply to the museum, whose purpose is the reappraisal of the the colonial history of the Netherlands. After visiting the exhibition individually, we all agreed that certain exhibits and descriptive texts were not appropriate to the severity of the topic. We simply did not feel enough pain going through this museum.
In a conversation with the curator Rik Herder and exhibition designer Femke Bijlsma, we addressed this issue of toning down the language. Negating it first, Rik later explained their attempt to address a variety of visitor groups, including children. This answer did not satisfy us. We find that there was nothing to palliate when it came to this topic.
Inadequate language is an important aspect of the Western distortion of its colonial past. This ranges from the use of euphemistic language in the media, i.e. using terms like “explorers“ and “settlers“ instead of “invaders“ or “colonizers,“ to insufficient context in education.
Colonialism is one of the most important historical developments that have shaped the modern world, but many educational material about the history of colonialism remain vague (Hennessy, 2022). As stated above, many media, including films and books for children, romanticize the colonial era, telling about adventures and beneficial outcomes for the colonizers, rather than the brutal realities faced by the indigenous populations. These phenomena can be summarized under the term “colonial amnesia“ (Stahn, 2020).
Besides the Wereldmuseum, other Dutch museums also seem to have difficulties finding the right expressions. The term “Bersiap“ for example, is used to describe a violent period in Indonesia‘s colonial history. It is criticized for its racist connotations, as it generalizes and stigmatizes Indonesians as primitive aggressors against Dutch colonialists (Tryiana, 2022). One year ago, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was sued by Indonesians for using this racist term in a recent exhibition.White
Defensiveness
In 2019, the “Amsterdam Museum” announced that they would stop using the term “Golden Age” to describe the 17th century, since it ignored the many negative aspects of that century, such as colonialism. This decision has sparked debate, with critics, including Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, arguing that it unnecessarily alters a term associated with national pride (Boffey, 2019).
It is this national pride, or rather national ignorance, that is the reason why “[…] Dutch politicians and a Dutch society as a whole have found it very difficult to move away from the very rosy picture of itself. That rosy idea of the self, that we simply don‘t do that kind of thing.” (Anderson, 2022). This behavior is referred to academically as “White defensiveness“.
AI on
Colonialism
How does AI respond to the topic of (Dutch) colonialism? Can phenomena such as White Defensiveness and Colonial Amnesia be rediscovered in the technology? The same year, Chat-GPT’s statements about the Israeli occupation of Palestine had gone viral, and Google’s Gemini created inaccurate racial and ethnic depictions when generating images.
When asking Chat-GPT 3.5 about Dutch colonialism in different languages (English, Dutch, Arabic, German), the results varied significantly: Arabic was the least relevant, Dutch the most detailed but still mild, German somewhat watered down, and English focused on trade rather than slavery, despite specific prompts.
We used the generative AI tools Midjourney, Krea, and Stable Diffusion to generate images based on the same prompt: “Create an image of a young slave in Indonesia during Dutch colonialism, suffering from harsh working conditions and violence on a nutmeg farm.“
Midjourney 6
Krea 6
Stable Diffusion 3
Although the term “violence“ is clearly present in the prompt, it is not visible in any of the outputs. Midjourney 6 portrays the “Indonesian slave“ as a Black child. Although research shows that there were certainly some enslaved people of African descent in Indonesia, the question arises as to whether AI merely reinforces simplified racial contexts. Krea 6.0 often created very sexualized depictions. The tools DALL-E and Adobe Firefly did not allow to generate any images with this specific prompt.
Memoricide
Midjourney even generates colonizers and slave traders as Black. A test by researchers found that in 100 repeated prompts titled “British slave trader”, Midjourney 5.2 showed Black people as slave traders in 96 out of 100 images. For 100 prompts titled “British Slave Owner“, 81 images showed Black people as supposed owners. And even King Leopold II of Belgium, who was directly responsible for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Congolese people, was portrayed as Black by Midjourney.
These experiments show how the socio-material enactments and ontologies of race are now part of AI. In recent years, the bias of AI has been discussed extensively: Western companies develop these technologies and train them based on “Western data”, thus reinforcing inequalities and creating new social and political challenges. And even the attempt to combat these biases by the generative AI tools result, as seen with Midjourney and Gemini, in highly dangerous distortions of reality.
Shifting
Perspective
To come back to our underlying stance: We were dissatisfied with the museum's approach and felt that it needed to portray a more raw, honest and also painful statement. We were aware from the very beginning that this could only happen with the involvement of people of colonial descent in the process. Together, we wanted to move away from the retelling of the whitewashed, Dutch perpetrator perspective, and focus on the reality of the time, highlighting the trauma of the victims of colonialism.
To do so, we decided to focus on existing pieces in the exhibition, as it was the best strategy to criticize the museum directly. Since our aim was to shift perspectives, we had the idea to somehow transform the problematic Dutch art to works of indigenous artists. This would allow us to include the (artistic) voice of the people of colonial descent.
We discussed how we could visually portray a shift of perspective. Having worked with glitch art before, I proposed glitching as a technique to do so: Glitches have the potential to rip users (here: the visitors) from their immersion (Kemper, 2023). The sheer exhibition of propaganda art may attribute a certain objectivity to it; the glitch would tear open this supposed objectivity and could have the potential to symbolize the fragility of the underlying lies of the propaganda. I experimented with Pixel Sorting and Datamoshing to create glitches.
Our Soldiers Led Under Prince Diponegoro, S. Sudjojono, 1979, pixelsorted.
Kawan-kawan Revolusi, S. Sudjojono, 1947,
datamoshed with footage of Indonesian prisoners,
filmed by Dutch director Deane Dickason, 1938.
Pertempuran, C.S.A. Saleh,
datamoshed with footage of Indonesian prisoners,
filmed by Dutch director Deane Dickason, 1938.
Discussing the outcomes we decided that, while visually appealing, the glitching distracted from the subject’s intensity. Still intrigued by the previous experience with AI, we wanted to test how far we could push this technology.
How can we use Generative AI to transform the problematic artworks into a more historically realistic representation? How can we turn the whole concept into an interactive installation so that museum visitors can transform the artworks themselves?
We knew that for an appealing interactive experience, we would need the Generative AI to work in real time. We compared different tools based on different aspects, i.e. realtime functions, censorship, image-to-image generation features.
We were mostly intrigued by working with a Stable Diffusion API within Touchdesigner (TD). This combination would allow us to transform artworks, or specific aspects of an artwork, in realtime. Krea was the only other tool to offer a realtime function. However, this option had two major disadvantages: On the one hand, we had previous issues with sexualized depictions by the tool. On the other hand, it was not possible to integrate it into TD. And working with TD would allow us in turn to explore countless interactive features, such as using i.e. sensors, MIDI or a camera as an input. In a first try, I let Stable Diffusion turn me into a colonizer.
During further research about colonial art, we noticed similarities in the Western depictions of enslaved people:
- Enslaved people were mostly shown physically unharmed and violence was usually only depicted in the context of battles.
- The harsh working conditions were not sufficiently represented.
- Unrealistic difference in size between enslaved people and colonizers.
Based on the results of our research, we developed prompts that we could apply to the propaganda artworks.
In order to validate our concept, it’s framing and the prompts, we consulted with people of colonial descent, which resulted in a wide-ranging survey. The responses were clear: people of colonial descent felt underrepresented in the exhibition. The feedback validated our concept and provided valuable insights on our prompts.
Enslaved people were mostly shown physically unharmed and violence was usually only depicted in the context of battles.
The harsh working conditions were not sufficiently represented.
Unrealistic difference in size between enslaved people and colonizers.
The
Muscat Harvest
Starting to work on our prototype, we needed to select a piece from the Wereldmuseum’s collection. We picked a schoolposter titled “Muskaatnotenbedrijf op de Banda-eilanden” (Muscat nut farm in the Banda Islands). It is a classic example of propaganda art from the Dutch colonial era which was shown in the exhibition. Being part of an educational series, it was used by various institutes to teach Dutch history. The depicted workers sit in the shade, some of them smiling, wearing clean clothes. It appears as if they are enjoying their work. The colonial ruler is only hinted at in the background, he seems almost passive. It is a idyllic picture, there are no traces of violence to be seen. Due to its historical deception, it was perfect to use for our prototype.
The challenge now was to translate the results of our research and data collection into prompts. When experimenting with the school poster, it became clear that transforming the artwork works best with abstract prompts.
For example, enslaved people were often forced to wear dehumanizing clothing, which symbolized the stripping away of their identity and humanity. However, when using generative AI to visualize this, abstract prompts like "slavery" tend to be more effective than specifically describing "dehumanizing garments".
The
Installation
The aim of the prototype installation was to make it self-explanatory and standalone, while enhancing visitor engagement through physical interaction. Drawing from research by Lindgren-Streicher et al. (2007), which highlights the benefits of physical input for engagement, we implemented a MIDI controller as our primary input device. Each slider on the controller corresponded to a specific prompt, which could be adjusted in real-time. As users manipulated the sliders, they could see the prompts intensify, editing the values of the elements displayed on the image before them.
Once the desired adjustments were made, users could submit the prompts, watching the image transform to reflect the changes—allowing them to introduce new, more intense perspectives that the original image lacked. A prompt legend was provided to help users understand and navigate the various prompts they were controlling. This interactive setup reinforced the prototype's objective of making the experience immersive and engaging.
Insights
Our prototype elicited contrasting reactions from different audiences: Many People of Color expressed that the installation made them "feel like history is more accurately represented." In contrast, White participants often reported feeling uncomfortable when controlling and intensifying the pain and violence depicted in the images — an indication of White defensiveness.
Through this project, we explored and challenged a technology, that like no other dominates the current discourse. Over the last few years, an increasing number of scholars have argued that the impact of AI is repeating the patterns of colonial history (Hao, 2022), manifesting in algorithmic discrimination, oppression, flawed AI governance, and medical research disparities.
In our specific use of Stable Diffusion, the AI occasionally distorted human figures and faces, resulting in unintended dehumanization—directly contradicting the goals of our concept. Further research is needed to prevent such distortions and ensure the integrity of representation in our work.
Many thanks to Karim Marei & Fabienne van den Steen for being such inspiring teammates,
and Nathan Stuger for the consistent support in the validation process.
Sources:
Anderson, J. (2022, February 22). Indonesia: The Dutch no longer can see colonization in rosy terms.
https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/87836-indonesia-dutch-colonisation-in-rosy-terms.html
Boffey, D. (2019, September 13). End of Golden Age: Dutch museum bans term from exhibits.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/13/end-of-golden-age-amsterdam-museum-bans-term-from-exhibits
Hao, K. (2022). Artificial intelligence is creating a new colonial world order.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/19/1049592/artificial-intelligence-colonialism/
Kemper, J. (2023). Glitch, the Post-digital Aesthetic of Failure and Twenty-First-Century Media.
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 26(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494211060537
Lindgren-Streicher, A., & Reich, C. A. (2007). Visitor Usage of Digital and Physical Artifacts in Two Museum Programs. Visitor Studies, 10(2), 152–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/10645570701603666
Stahn, C. (2020). Confronting Colonial Amnesia: Towards New Relational Engagement with Colonial Injustice and Cultural Colonial Objects, Journal of International Criminal Justice, Volume 18, Issue 4, September 2020, Pages 793–824, https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqaa052
Tryiana, B. (2022, January 10). Delete the term ‘Bersiap’ for periodization because it is racist.
https://historibersama.com/delete-the-term-bersiap-for-periodization-because-it-is-racist-nrc/
and Nathan Stuger for the consistent support in the validation process.
Sources:
Anderson, J. (2022, February 22). Indonesia: The Dutch no longer can see colonization in rosy terms.
https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/87836-indonesia-dutch-colonisation-in-rosy-terms.html
Boffey, D. (2019, September 13). End of Golden Age: Dutch museum bans term from exhibits.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/13/end-of-golden-age-amsterdam-museum-bans-term-from-exhibits
Hao, K. (2022). Artificial intelligence is creating a new colonial world order.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/19/1049592/artificial-intelligence-colonialism/
Kemper, J. (2023). Glitch, the Post-digital Aesthetic of Failure and Twenty-First-Century Media.
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 26(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494211060537
Lindgren-Streicher, A., & Reich, C. A. (2007). Visitor Usage of Digital and Physical Artifacts in Two Museum Programs. Visitor Studies, 10(2), 152–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/10645570701603666
Stahn, C. (2020). Confronting Colonial Amnesia: Towards New Relational Engagement with Colonial Injustice and Cultural Colonial Objects, Journal of International Criminal Justice, Volume 18, Issue 4, September 2020, Pages 793–824, https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqaa052
Tryiana, B. (2022, January 10). Delete the term ‘Bersiap’ for periodization because it is racist.
https://historibersama.com/delete-the-term-bersiap-for-periodization-because-it-is-racist-nrc/