This year in London, Lingfei Shen's works appeared in two group exhibitions: 404 NOT FOUND at Fitzrovia Gallery and Nightfall Division in Archway. Her practice directly addresses the entanglement between technology, spirit, and identity. Her methods are unusual-assembling discarded electronic parts into visual patterns, and using digital faces to talk about the dilemmas of contemporary womanhood. The works are impactful, sometimes moving, sometimes questionable, and always hovering between critique and spectacle.

At Fitzrovia, Shen presented Loading Enlightenment.... At first glance it seems straightforward: a mandala made from discarded electronic components. Old wires, resistors, cracked circuit boards-objects most people see as trash-are carefully pieced together by the artist into a circular geometric design. It is intricate, time-consuming, almost like ritual labor. She treats electronic waste as artistic material. The work carries an atmosphere of electrical confusion and disorientation, but the materials themselves remind us of waste, abandonment, and decay.

Shen links this work to her experiences at electronic music parties. She says her“electronic spiritual world” was found in the machines themselves. Loading Enlightenment... attempts to articulate this paradox: using discarded electronic waste-the very machines that once made noise-to create a symbol of the spiritual world. On one hand, the work reminds us that e-waste does not simply vanish; it continues to exist after disposal. On the other hand, once these fragments are placed in a gallery and arranged into refined geometry, their original sharpness can be easily softened. A work that is intended to critique overproduction may end up as an attractive installation-pleasing, but is no longer unsettling. Shen herself calls it“an unfinished ritual of electronics and spirit, a loading screen of the lost soul.” It is a powerful description, but it also reveals uncertainty: is this true artwork, or just a form of electronic recycling dressed up as art?

In Archway, Shen presented another work, Psyche (2024), which took a different path. This time there were no wires or machines, but video art. Using VR technology, she generated four digital faces that never remain stable. They flicker, glitch, split, and re-form continuously. Shen calls them“fluid skins,” intended to capture the fragility and uncertainty of identity in the digital era.

Unlike Loading Enlightenment..., this work carries almost no trace of manual labor. In Psyche, the faces immediately evoke the daily reality of digital life: constantly updated social profiles, selfies endlessly edited, photos copied, deleted, and reposted. Identity on screen is never fixed.

The impact of the video is strong, but the problem is familiar. Using“screen glitches” to express fragility and instability is already common in digital art. Flicker, distortion, fragmentation-these techniques are easily recognizable and quickly read by the audience. Shen's treatment is more restrained than most. She avoids over-the-top effects, instead holding attention through subtle, continuous change. Yet the question remains: can this approach still offer new insights, or does it simply repeat a visual language that viewers already know too well?

The two works share a clear connection: Shen consistently uses electronic materials themselves as the subject. Wires and power strips are not just props but media for confronting e-waste directly. The flickering faces in her video are a way to make us face how distorted images shape identity. Her creative processes themselves carry meaning: one built patiently by hand, the other left to the automatic flow of the screen.

But these works also reveal her limits. Shen is skilled at exposing contradictions: waste turned into art, faces broken down on screen. Yet she often stops there. She throws the problem at the viewer without pushing it further. Perhaps this is her stance-forcing us to remain in contradiction and face it. But at times, it feels more like stagnation: the works highlight problems and meaning, but do not move toward solutions.

This tension was visible in both exhibitions. At Fitzrovia, Loading Enlightenment... stood out because of its unusual materials, but it could also be consumed by audiences as just another“beautiful installation.” At Archway, Psyche avoided the showy effects often seen in digital art, making it quiet and refined. Yet its reliance on“glitch language” meant it lacked freshness.

Overall, while Shen's practice involves AR and digital technologies, the core of her concern remains in fine art: material and identity. For her, circuit boards and screen pixels are equally fragile, unstable, and loaded with meaning. The sharpest critique is this: she seems too comfortable within contradiction. Loading Enlightenment...:“ makes us notice e-waste, but when waste becomes a beautiful installation, how much of its shock value survives? Psyche points to the instability of identity, but after we accept that instability, what more does it give us? Shen appears unwilling-or, or at least not yet able-to take the next step.

Her challenge moving forward is clear: can she go further? Can she not only reveal contradictions but also push us to understand or even resolve them? What can be said with certainty is that Lingfei Shen is a serious artist. Her sensitivity to materials and her commitment to processing are obvious. She neither falls into empty dystopian fear nor indulges in glorifying technology. Instead, she forces us to notice what we prefer to ignore: a pile of electronic waste, a flickering unstable face on a screen.

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