AI, the Artist, and Spirituality: What Kind of Relationship Should They Have?

Computer generation is merely one step in Lin Ke's creative process. In the Look Closer, There's Nothing series, the images originate from photographs of all his previous watercolors and oil paintings. He lowers the transparency of these photographs to near-invisibility, then takes screenshots on the screen. When these faint images are reintroduced into the exhibition space, he uses Photoshop to improvise reconfigurations, finally printing them onto nano-sponges via UV printing—a material that also produces a screen-like viewing effect. The 32-inch Apple Pro Display XDR in his studio serves as the physical foundation for this series. He walks closer and farther from the screen, simulating real-life viewing distances and the actual size of the works. "When you move closer, the image disappears from the retina; when you step back, it reappears. And because the image is so faint, the brain fills in the gaps — that's the 'Look Closer, There's Nothing' series." The various viewing experiences Lin Ke explores also refer to a kind of conscious experience, a creative outcome with a humanistic底色. As he explains in the interview: "The essence of this world is that when you look closely, there's nothing there. So what it offers is an emotional value: nothing is really that big a deal."

While Lin Ke contemplates the ways of seeing brought by the screen, Ye Linghan attempts to convey the texture of the screen in painting. Also employing digital technology and computers as part of his creative process, Ye Linghan treats the computer as a pure tool. He applies paint to canvas, photographs it, uploads it to the computer for processing, and finally returns to painting—the entire process shuttling back and forth between digital and manual work. Unlike working on a flat surface, the constant intervention of the computer allows him to add content and thought to the painting within a layered space. For him, this working method "is a way of constantly breaking inertia—because constant switching and pausing is the best way to break it." This also explains why he chooses a creative process that involves transformation. During the computer processing stage, the extreme precision brought by the machine's automatic optimization is what the artist calls "precision aesthetics" — a painterly aesthetic that lies between the finer, more precise granularity made possible by contemporary materials. He deliberately paints to look like a screen—for instance, using an airbrush with extreme precision to create gradients, and the fluorescent colors produced by the airbrush closely resemble the hues emitted by a screen. The screen-like quality of the image offers, in some sense, a perspective that shifts the paradigm of perception. In the face of such powerful tools, what the artist needs is clear awareness and the ability to command AI to serve his own purposes.

Lin Ke's solo exhibition Hard Copy at BANK Shanghai from December 2025 to January 2026 explored how images are seen and how they come into being. Throughout his practice, Lin Ke has continuously experimented with different modes of image production and spectatorship. Since 2010, he has made himself the subject of his own experiments, engaging in a form of performance art in the computer age. His laptop serves as his studio, drawing materials from computer software and the internet, which become the content and form of his work. Screenshots and screen-recording software faithfully document each operation and the conceptual images that drift through virtual space.

His 2019 solo exhibition Sky Paintings employed what appeared to be traditional watercolor works, digital images, and video to explore the subtle space between the virtual and the real. The 2025 solo exhibition Ghostivity revealed the artist's internal techniques for translating digital files into physical space. In an interview, Lin Ke discussed how the works in that exhibition were realized through a logic closer to photographic output—restoring correct color, saturation, transparency, contrast, and brightness—these data parameters being the soul of the work. "Sometimes I even speak to the hardware and software, these lifeless things, asking them to transmit solutions to my consciousness, much like problem-solving sometimes requires inspiration. And when I seek answers from those around me, they usually can't solve it. So this completely internalized workflow, relying on machines and myself, sometimes feels very much like a kind of ghost technology." The Gouache Portraits in Hard Copy are an experiment in capturing subconscious images and sealing them on paper—an experiment in bringing private vision into a public space. From screenshots to gouache on paper, from virtual parameters to bodily perception — Lin Ke's work seems to be an ongoing experiment exploring multiple interpretations of "seeing."

THE FACE: In your practice, you regard your laptop as a space and have used it as your primary creative tool since 2010, transforming digital interaction processes into works of art. In the so-called "post-internet age," where the virtual and the real are increasingly intertwined, how do you understand the concept of "space" — especially the relationship between virtual space and physical space?

Lin Ke: As you said, the virtual and the real are increasingly intertwined, so I don't distinguish between them — in fact, I see them as one. Just as Elon Musk says, we are living in a virtual world. That's entirely possible. Because the "invisible particles" we see are like pixels — the brain reconstructs them into concrete objects, very specific, even as specific as the world before your eyes. What I mean is, we can never escape the brain's own capacity for abstraction.

THE FACE: Overall, what role does technology play in your practice? Is it a tool or a collaborator?

Lin Ke: It's both a tool and a collaborator, because behind these technological tools stand countless human creators. I am simply engaging in indirect collaboration with developers, engineers, and designers I've never met.

THE FACE: In the age of AI, how do you view the possibility of AI dominating human imagination and creativity? As an artist, what do you see as the greatest challenge of this era?

Lin Ke: This moment, described as a "supersonic tsunami" of singularity, is said to have already arrived — right here, in our present time. It feels urgent, and I sense a palpable tension. But at the same time, I realize that I am an artist who thinks and works almost entirely through computers, so this era should actually suit me quite well.
I think the greatest challenge still comes from the unfathomable depths of human nature. Art, in some sense, stands alongside philosophy and science as a pillar of human culture — because those who love art are never entirely without kindness.