The article explores a growing trend in contemporary art where artists like Pierre Huyghe, Nina Katchadourian, and Marge Monko create works that blur the line between art objects and sentient beings. These works incorporate human performers, animals, AI, and smart devices, prompting viewers to question whether these entities possess or simulate personhood, and forcing an examination of our instinct to anthropomorphize.
This artistic inquiry gains urgency from its parallel to pressing legal and ethical debates sparked by rulings like the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which granted corporations person-like rights. The article argues that by staging encounters with seemingly sentient art, these artists make abstract philosophical and legal questions about the boundaries of personhood—for animals, ecosystems, and AI—viscerally tangible, challenging viewers to reconsider what it means to be a 'person' in a world increasingly populated by non-human actors.