In the virtual studio: Interview with Lin Ke

After graduating from the New Media Department at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou in 2008, Lin Ke—his real name, which also happens to sound like the word “link”—discovered virtual user interfaces as his medium of choice. Since then, electronic devices and the Internet have become his workspaces, where he manipulates various programs and stock images, and, more recently, develops augmented reality art. However, the artist is no computer engineer—technology merely serves as a tool for his often performative projects, such as his electronic-music-backed videos documenting his daily activities on his computer. Such footage, created with the help of software that records on-screen movements, raises questions about the post-digital era—what happens when cursors are our prosthetic limbs and our relationships with ourselves and those around us are constantly mediated through screens?

After his recent move from Beijing, ArtAsiaPacific met up with the artist in his new home on the outskirts of Shanghai to discuss technology; his intricate, self-reflective process; and—unexpectedly—water puppetry.

Your creative process takes place largely on the computer screen, which is often referred to as your studio. Your artworks also feature computer desktop environments, with moving files; ubiquitous wallpapers; and videos of you, as if seen through the screen from inside the computer. What led you to set up and work exclusively from this “computer studio?”

When I first enrolled in the China Academy of Art, I simply liked painting and wanted to improve on my technical skills through studying fine arts. But then I ended up majoring in new media. My so-called “studio” became an Apple computer room. Instead of painting, I learned about computer networks, traditional photography, 3D animation, video art and multimedia performances. Painting became something I could do in my free time, but not something I wanted to seriously pursue professionally anymore. 

How did this interest in technology develop after you graduated from the China Academy of Art?

After graduating, I still had to find my creative medium. For a time, I was very interested in installations, but I didn’t have a studio to build things in. I only had a computer to work with, so I started a virtual studio with 3D software and modeled sculptures in it. Through that process, I realized that I was quite familiar with these “materials” on the computer—folders, interfaces, images—and started playing around with these features that constitute every virtual “world.” My works can be conceptual, performative, or visual, but all of them take place on the computer screen. Later, I found a screen-recording software and started making performance videos using the backdrop of computer desktops, over which I layered recordings of myself. The computer became a kind of third hand in my creative process—a hand that I am very comfortable using. 

In videos such as Like Me (2016), you appear in two ways: in a full-screen moving image obscured by a blue filter, and on a small window moving over the screen, reciting lines from the movie franchise Star Trek to the sound of electronic music. What do you see as your role in these works?

I was watching a water puppetry performance traditional to Vietnam, and I found it to be very similar to my own performances. Set in waist-deep pools of water, water puppetry involves lacquered wood puppets controlled by a puppet master, who in turn can animate his figures to make the character’s “spirit” come to life. Then there are the musicians on both sides of the stage who provide a guiding rhythm for the performer while adding to the general mood of the narrative. To me, the computer is like such a puppet show. I use the mouse and keyboard to control my actions, find music and other materials online and use them to create temporary performative scenes. When I need to participate, I turn on the computer’s self-portrait mode and appear on the screen as well; otherwise, I am the puppet master who hides behind his figurines.

What is your interest and connection to sound?

I made songs, more or less haphazardly, with audio-production software. Now, I compose sounds for my own videos. To me, music and sound are especially connected to improvisation. Musical rhythms trigger my performances, much like electronic music makes people dance. I call my early videos—such as Electronic Music Always Makes People Dancing 02 (2011) and the later work 十 (2015)—“music videos,” because besides TV and films, weren’t MTV and advertising the earliest forms of video art that my generation came into contact with?

Your work is inseparable from computer technology and today’s technical advances in general. How do you see the relationship between art and technology?

The computer is simply a type of medium in which an artist’s experiences can be reflected. For me, the pivot in the relationship between art and technology is an artist’s personal perspective and their vision, which will shape their encounters with whatever technologies they are using.  

I am especially interested in the relationship between works on- and offline, and how viewers can experience both at the same time. You have been working with the app Layar to enhance the viewing experience of your images. The app can be downloaded on smartphones and used to scan one of your “physical” works, which triggers the display of videos that you embedded in these prints. You recently used this in a show at MOCA Cleveland with the work I’m Here (2018). Could you tell me how AR worked in this project?

Yes, I was invited to participate in the 2018 Front International Cleveland Triennial. The curator had seen another one of my works—my augmented reality art book lin_ke published by tria publishing in 2016. Although it is a printed object, the book is only made fully accessible when viewers scan each page with the smartphone app Layar. The curator hoped I would create a similar work for the staircase of the museum and invited me to do a three-month residency. The space that the work was meant to be situated in was challenging in that it was completely empty. I decided to hang five prints—what I called “preview projects”—that reflect on the viewing experience within the exhibition space.

I took pictures of the exhibition space with works of mine already on display. Afterwards, instead of reproducing these photographs exactly, I photoshopped other works into the images—so the environment in the print matched the space that viewers were in, but the depicted works in the staircase didn’t. After scanning the image with the app, a video appears on viewers’ phones featuring the same photoshopped work but with a virtual audience standing in front of the piece, seeing it just like the “real” viewer. There is an audience both in the (physical) space of the image and the (virtual) image of the space. I wanted to create something that reflects on one’s own body, an immersive experience for viewers in the staircase.

How did the idea of immersive spaces evolve in your practice?

I used to live in Hangzhou, where many contemporary artists live, but where there was very little space for the display of contemporary art. Instead, as a student I often went to Shanghai and later to Beijing to see exhibitions. However, whether I was in Hangzhou, Shanghai or Beijing, I could always see exhibitions on the Internet as well. I think seeing and immersing oneself in art is very important. Whether on- or offline, art can have real effects on people.

What are your plans for future projects?

Right now I am working on a project in collaboration with a brand, which will also turn into a kind of exhibition. But I am still experimenting before I actually produce the works. This is actually the part that is the most fun: being able to freely create work.

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