Lin Jing jing

Adopting a methodology of paradox, Artist Lin JingJing discusses intrinsic uncertainty, repressed anxieties and the loss of individuality in contemporary society.

Elaborating on a theory established by the French anthropologist Marc Augé (1935-), Lin Jingjing explores how contemporary forms of colonialism can be facilitated through new technology, resulting in the transformation of personal and public space into “Non-Places”, where identity as an independent individual becomes utterly insignificant. She submerges audiences into her absurdist and imagined space through a carefully weaved series of connections, different artworks function in relation to one another and collectively produce a powerfully critical narrative.

We are Free to Choose but We Are not Free From the Consequences of Our Choices: Departures 200 x 200cm LED display panel 2017

We are Free to Choose but We Are not Free From the Consequences of Our Choices: Arrivals 200 x 200cm LED display panel 2017

"She addresses some of the most wrenching themes imaginable—death, loss, loneliness, betrayal

—with a remarkable sophistication and restraint, even at times a touch of humor."

From Existential Beauty: The Art of Lin Jingjing

By Richard Vine (Art in America)

Zoom in Find my Digital Soul in This Cruel World 30 x 30cm Engraved marble stone 2019

Nobody Knows I was There, Nobody Knows I was not There: Private Memory Installation 2009

Fall in Love A Million Times 300 x 200 cm pigment print on canvas 2019

Username or Password Incorrect Installation 2017 50 passports represented by real covers from different countries with each one presented on marble

We Have A Problem For Every Solution Since You Silenced Me Mix-media on Canvas 160x100cm 2020

Interdisciplinary Projects

Works by Media

In some impossible way it saved my self-respect and honor, but it also gave me a powerful message – that when you let something become absurd, it will turn into something else, and its qualities and direction are all subject to change. The thing that had dazed that boy actually never really existed. It was a kind of existence that comes from the infinite propagation of reality. Though this infiniteness is not real, it is enough to be absurd. It is a different kind of truth within untruth, the truth of invisible truth, the untruth that overturns truth, the persistence of absurdity. In fearlessness and certainty, it creates power. That boy’s retreat was the retreat of the imagination.

Many years later, I realized that this can be my contemporary art method. -- Lin Jingjing

From Urgent and Indefinite: the Method of Paradox

A New Dawn For America 2020: First AI Candidate presidential Campaign Speech Video Installation 2019

A New Dawn For America: You can Trust me is a video installation (2018-2019) promoting a 2020 AI Presidential election campaign, the whole idea is first to create a socially responsible AI that can replace any human leader in the political sphere, then to eventually replace all representatives, institutions and soft infrastructure of government with robots.

We see the machine is superior to humans in logical reasoning, information processing, and intelligent judgment. On top of that, machines transcend the physiological limitations and character flaws and contradictions of human beings. Rather than enduring the endless political scandals of each election cycle, the voting public can select an ethically

and morally consistent robot that will be reliable and trustworthy in discharging its civic duties and executing the will of the voting public.

This absurd 2020 election campaign also probes our insecurities and exhaustion from the social obligations, using the proposal of complete displacement of the individual human for a simulacrum as a means to question how our current political reality is impacting our sense of what human collectivity is.