Using paradoxical concepts and humorous language, artist Lin Jing Jing submerges audiences into her absurdist airport where, despite extravagances and leaps in technology, troubling reflections on our current world are laid bare, and where she discusses intrinsic uncertainty, repressed anxieties and the loss of individuality in our society.
The project title TAKE OFF refers to the structure of the exhibition itself, which transforms the gallery space into an international airport in the imagined nation of the People's Republic of Dreamland (PRD).
Elaborating on a theory established by the French anthropologist Marc Aug (1935-), Lin Jingjing explores the current and future ramifications of airports and their facilities as Non-Places, where identity as an independent individual becomes utterly insignificant.
Through a carefully weaved series of connections, several of the artworks in the show function in relation to one another and collectively produce a powerfully critical narrative.
A quietly terrifying component of the project is the advertisement for a completely fabricated, but not unimaginably powerful mobile phone application.
Presented as a light-box identical to ones found in airports across the world, Superzoom publicizes an app that is highly recommended by--and in fact produced by--the PRD government.
It promises to assist an individual with quicker passage through customs and to make new friends as well as business connections.
However, this is achieved only at the cost of forfeiting the entirety of your private information.
Through Superzoom Lin Jingjing makes it clear that although the information age has allowed access to incredible new experiences, it also has exposed our personal information unreservedly, making it easy for private information to be stolen and violated, rendering the individual defenseless.
In response to Superzoom there is a more discretely presented advertisement for an app called Perfect ID.
Produced by a company called My Quality L.
