Lexiong Ying
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Jun 25
- 4 min read
Lexiong Ying’s work often starts with a personal experience, something frustrating, unsettling, or quietly lingering. She explores digital identity, social pressure, and emotional tension by looking at the systems around us and how they shape our daily lives. Her process combines visual research with intuition, balancing analytical thought with a sense for subtle emotional shifts. Alongside her art practice, she also works as a fortune-teller, which brings a more introspective tone to her work. Using different media, she creates pieces that encourage people to slow down and reflect on discomfort, confusion, or the strange patterns of everyday life.
Q: When did you first start thinking about digital life as something you wanted to question through your work?
A: My earliest kowtowing to the impact of digital life on us was when I realised that even with all my social media contacts, I often find them strange. My experimental photographic work, "Plastic Human Relations", is a metaphor for this. What’s more, the way social media presents life is so fragmented that people can fabricate lives that aren’t real. So, I started to reflect on digital life, and I was exposed to it very early on, but now it creates a mood of helplessness, and I am seemingly compelled to use it.
Q: In your password project, why did the Möbius strip feel like the right structure to work with?
A: The Möbius strip seems to be the perfect metaphor for this project, as the theoretical characteristics of my project are similar to those of the Möbius strip. Möbius embodies the unity of opposites. It appears to have both an interior and an exterior, as well as a top and a bottom. However, it is just one continuous surface, symbolising the duality of opposites that are not separate but intertwined. This is quite similar to our current relationship with technology and various means of authentication, including verification methods.
Technology was initially designed to simplify people’s daily lives, but the practical effect has complicated things. Authentication is supposed to protect our digital assets, but increasingly complex authentication processes and longer passwords overwhelm people. Often, passwords are made less secure to make them easier to remember. This is a kind of “Möbius.”
Q: How do you bring together personal feeling and research when making something like “How do you verify that you are you?”
A: Most of my work is based on my practical experiences, observations, and reflections on life, which drive my artistic endeavours. This work is no exception; it stems from my unfortunate experience of losing my mobile phone twice in London and having to download and enter passwords, then reset them, to log into various apps. It was during these cycles that the idea of "How do you verify that you are you?" was born.
Based on the above premise, I wanted to touch on the thoughts and actions of more people than just myself when faced with the same situation. Therefore, the research methodology for this project followed a structured process divided into three main areas:
The overarching perspective focused on exploring wider societal attitudes towards password security.
Public surveys aim to gather collective experiences and grievances to understand how people interact with digital authentication.
Self-observation, on the other hand, delves into individuals’ experiences of password management, analysing the emotions and behaviours that arise from day-to-day interactions with authentication systems. By combining metaphorical design with analytical research, "How do you verify that you are you?" reveals the unintended consequences of people’s reliance on passwords. It encourages viewers to rethink the balance between security and convenience, questioning whether an alternative approach to digital identity management is possible in the future.
Q: What does fortune-telling add to the way you approach ideas or decisions in your practice?
A: As a fortune-teller, I am deeply drawn to exploring human emotions—whether by expressing them, confronting them directly, uncovering their underlying causes, or finding ways to heal them. One example is the conceptual Eastern hot spring brand I created, "SUIHUI Hot Spring", which is built around the idea of “carving out stillness within the chaos of daily life.” By combining meditation with the hot spring experience, I sought to create a brand philosophy that is both distinctive and emotionally resonant. I see human behaviour as fundamentally driven by emotional currents, which themselves arise from deeper layers of consciousness. This belief fuels my strong interest in incorporating spiritual themes into artistic practices to provide audiences with meaningful and potentially transformative experiences.
Q: You often look at pressure points—between people and systems, nature and control. What keeps you coming back to that tension?
A: I love this question, hahaha, because it goes right to the core. I think it has to do with the fact that I’m a hypersensitive person, which means I’m more likely to feel stress and develop chronic stress. I think there’s a great saying: “Pain is the great school.” All work that has been refined through pain, anxiety, and frustration is very infectious, if not more so. The process of creating the work is also a process of dissecting my relationship to a subject or an attempt at self-analysis.
Q: What kind of response or reflection do you hope your work stirs in someone looking at it?
A: I didn’t have any particular preconceived notions of what the viewer’s reaction should be. Any kind of reaction is fine, as it’s a natural occurrence based on their own life experiences. Instead of expecting a response from the audience, I’m more curious to know their different thoughts, and there will likely be something I can’t expect. However, for works on specific themes, especially those concerning the underprivileged and crises, I look forward to their concern and even action to improve the situation.
