A generative artist that you can’t define

It's difficult to define Jinyao as an artist in a specific field. He has academic qualifications in musicology, but he is also skilled in creative code for both sound and image. He served as a theater producer, director of a sound lab, as well as a pioneer of audiovisual and pure data in Taiwan. He has been a slashie or multi-hyphenate before these words were invented. Jinyao appears to be a bridge among programming, arts, and music since signs of the three elements' crossover could be seen in his creations.

Beginning from fxhash

At the earlier stage, Jinyao had tried to apply the concept of his theater piece Distortion City (2010) to his generative piece Distortion City (2021) on fxhash. fxhash is open to all the creators different from censorship on Art Blocks, thus having gained a great amount of support from generative artists and becoming a vital platform in the gen art ecosystem.

Distortion City (2021) emphasized the interaction of sound and image. It observed the shape of sound waves with an oscilloscope, visually speaking, kind of resembling Oscilloscope Music that was a hit on Kickstarter. Nonetheless, interactive or sound pieces like Distortion City are not as popular as generative pieces on fxhash.

Soon after the release of Distortion City, Jinyao had published Alley (2021), forsaken (2021), and evangel (2022) one after another in a month. He started to break the limit of generative creations. The visual styles changed sharply featuring textures of sketching by analogy, which is hard to believe that they are created by codes. In most people's imagination, code art is in a geometric-color-lump or digital style. These works created by Jinyao Lin, however, are different from the accustomed style and turn to a sort of handwriting, warm texture along with an Eastern blank and solitude. Jinyao Lin has been well-known on fxhash since then.

A speedy creator constantly sharpening his skills

Jinyao is so productive that he can release a new piece in five to six days and try various expressions every now and then. One time a friend of his asked him with worry: What if the market got tired of his pieces because he published one at short intervals? Jinyao replied with ease: He'd been trying new styles and expressions that were totally different from evangel (2022). These new expressions are what we've seen already, Cloud Atlas (2022) and Requiem: Cloud (2022). The series had successfully conquered fxhash with exquisite strokes and textures, also bringing him to participate in Art Basel HK on behalf of fxhash. He participated in ABHK with the piece Mythologic (2022), a convergence and finalization of the former two pieces that told everyone his world view: the presentation of chaos and order.

Jinyao has attempted to experiment all kinds of possibilities of arts in various fields whether he's a theater producer, composer or programming artist. He's been able to master various new-type creative tools and furthermore switch to different expressions and styles fast.

A generative system learned from Tai Chi (Shadowboxing): Metaphysics

Jinyao had been in the process of Metaphysics's creation since this April, and you could observe its revisions on his Twitter. During the time he participated in ABHK, Jinyao had experimented on a different expression from Mythologic (2022), turning to a freehand style in the generation of texture and material. The theme had also been switched from mythological creatures symbolizing chaos and order to "Qi" (the air) and human's senses, a demonstration of the spirit and energy.

According to Jinyao, the inspiration of Metaphysics came from Yunshou, a movement from Tai Chi. The whirl and flow on the pieces is like practicing Tai Chi on the canva. The piece is not only an image, but also an invisible generative system. Viewers can sense the existence of Qi from the trajectory of the piece as well as the liveliness presented by the piece.

Jinyao's main theme has never changed though his style is varied, which is an imagination of the cosmos, attention to the world, as well as obsession with chaos and order. Presenting organisms by algorithms has become the most fascinating part in Jinyao's creation.

Creating a future with chaos and order

Generative art in Taiwan has been developing for almost 20 years. It was not until 2021 that media and platforms such as NFTs and blockchains had made it a kind of valuable digital asset, which people can trade and therefore became the art market's favorite. However, we often ignore the fact that these generative creations come from the accumulation of those generative artists' constant practice in 20 years. The market value brought by NFTs merely makes us face squarely that these artworks exist for real.

People often define a piece's quality or judge its art value by its price in the NFT market: It's seen as a classic because it reaches an all-time high in prices, or it's not worth mentioning because no one notices. Nevertheless, the names of Taiwanese generative artists such as Jinyao Lin and Aluan Wang (ileiv oivm) have once again been heard by the world by participating in ABHK, being selected by Art Blocks, as well as being included in the list of Tezos arts exhibited in Art Basel Miami. We can view from another perspective, perhaps from that of art history, to see a new type of art revolution happening. We can also anticipate which kind of future, with chaos and order, that these talented artists will bring us to, in the river of time.

Creation Info:

Metaphysics on Art Blocks

Mint Time：December 8, 2 am (UTC+8)

Starting Price: 7E

Resting Price: 0.14E

Artist Jinyao Lin's Twitter