Lianjiang Zhu
- All Images © Lianjiang Zhu
Bio
Lianjiang Zhu (b. 1997, Wenzhou, China; based in London) is a time-based media artist whose work interrogates the conditions under which bodies are technologized, simulated, and mediated in contemporary digital regimes. Working primarily with moving images and performance, he explores the entanglement between algorithmic systems and corporeal perception, exposing how technologies of control subtly reorganize subjectivity and agency.
His practice is rooted in an investigation of technological mimicry, affective repetition, and the plasticity of bodily gesture. Zhu constructs fleeting forms that shift between presence and absence, embodiment and abstraction—probing how power embeds itself in the sensory, the ephemeral, and the virtual. Rather than narrating fixed identities or coherent bodies, it renders fractured surfaces where autonomy and opacity resist seamless capture.
Statement
My practice stems from a sustained interest in how technology and image-making shape our perception of the body, identity, and selfhood. In my works, I attempt to shift the body from a passive object of observation to an active agent that intervenes in the act of seeing. The body is no longer stable or clearly defined; instead, it continuously transforms, dislocates, becomes invisible, muted, or misread.
Rather than telling a complete story, I construct uncertain viewing experiences through digital editing, image fragmentation, and nonlinear structures. Within these works, the body is often de-characterized, emotions are subdued, and language is fractured or absent. This is not an attempt at dehumanization, but rather a way to raise questions: When a body becomes unrecognizable, can we still affirm its presence and relational existence? How do we perceive a subject that remains obscured?
Through experiments with simulation, repetition, and displacement, I try to evoke experiences of being unreadable or unanswered—conditions that frequently reflect the individual’s position within social systems, technological apparatuses, and the politics of visibility. For me, the image is not a vehicle for clear transmission, but a process of signal generation—one that may falter, be delayed, or fail entirely. These moments of failure are, in themselves, traces of struggle, resistance, and the ongoing negotiation of presence.
朱连江，1997年生于中国温州，现居伦敦。其主要通过影像与行为探讨当代技术如何重构身体与感知。其创作关注数字图像机制如何塑造观看方式与主体性的生成，作品常呈现一种游移于“在场与缺席”、“具身与抽象”之间的感知状态。
他的实践聚焦于技术模仿、动作循环与情感重复的机制，建构出断裂但持续生成的图像表面，借此质问技术权力如何嵌入感官系统与虚拟维度。他的作品并不描绘特定身份或叙事线索，而是呈现匿名、幽灵性与晦暗性之间的持续张力。
我的创作源于对技术与图像如何影响我们感知身体、身份与自我的关注。在影像中，我尝试将身体从一个被观看的对象，转化为干预观看机制的存在。它不再稳定或明确，而是不断变形、错位、隐形，甚至失语与被误读。
我不试图讲述一个完整的故事，而是通过数字剪辑、图像重组与非线性叙事，构建一种不确定的观看经验。身体在其中被去除特征，情绪被压抑，语言支离破碎。这并非为了“去人化”，而是引向一个问题：当身体难以被识别时，我们还能确认它与彼此的存在吗？我们如何感知一个被遮蔽的主体？
通过模拟、重复、错位等形式策略的实验，我试图描绘现实中“无法回应”与“不可解读”的经验。这些状态往往指向个体在社会、技术与观看机制中的困境。图像对我而言，不是传达信息的工具，而是一种持续发出信号的过程。吸引我的，是记录这些信号生成、发出、延迟、失败，甚至无从回应的时刻。这些失败本身，也正是主体挣扎、斗争、存在的痕迹。