Statement

Jason Knight is a Montreal-based artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans bioart, digital media, and traditional approaches such as drawing and print, forging a dynamic bridge between art, science, and critical theory. For over four decades, Knight has explored the intricate entanglements of technology, humanity, and societal structures, interrogating the ethical boundaries of artificial intelligence, biotechnological innovation, and ecological survival. Their work is a raw, unfiltered plunge into the existential currents of our time: What does it mean to be human in an era of cyborg bodies and planetary collapse? How do we reconcile the seductive promise of progress with the spectre of violence and loss entailed in capital production?

Knight’s creative process is a torrent of philosophical and speculative inquiry, as evidenced in the sprawling grids of handwritten LabNotes that map ideas and awareness. These fragments—scribbled with urgency and adorned with hearts, underlines, and arrows—reveal a restless intellect grappling with humanity’s future. “NO MORE CONQUERABLE TERRITORY/SPACE / ROBOTS BUILDING IN SPACE / HOW TO TEACH AI TO ♥,” one note questions, while another pleads, “NON VIOLENCE - PEACE WE DO THIS FOREVER TOGETHER IN LOVE.” These writings oscillate between dystopian dread and utopian yearning, critiquing greed, war, and ecological ruin while envisioning a world of compassion, liberation, and radical self-awareness. His art emerges from this tension—a space where AI might reduce ego, where cyborg futures collide with fragile biospheres, and where planetary survival hinges on collective awakening.

This thematic richness is deeply personal, shaped by a life marked by resilience and reflection. In 2007, amongst other trauma experienced at the time, Knight survived a poisoning by a student—an event that thrust mortality and vulnerability into sharp focus. This trauma, compounded by periods of confinement he describes as a “mental prison,” infuses his work with an intimate gravity. Their 2010 drawing, a meticulous pencil reinterpretation of Honoré Daumier’s La Rue Transnonain (1834), channels this experience into a haunting tableau of a fallen figure amid chaos. Rendered with cross-hatched precision, the piece mourns institutional violence while echoing Knight’s own encounters with betrayal and survival. Similarly, his Mastercopy vanitas still life—a skull atop worn books, flanked by wilting flowers and candles — marries classical symbolism with a visceral meditation on life’s transience, honed by brushes with death.

Knight’s artistic approach is as diverse as the questions it suggests for the viewer/reader. In bioart, they have manipulated biological processes — DNA sequences, cellular signalling, and bio-generative forms — to probe the boundaries of life itself, asking, “WHAT IS POSSIBLE W/ GENETICS VS. ELECTRONICS/AI/ROBOTICS?” His digital works dissect virtual realities and immersive technologies, envisioning “DNA PROGRAMMED BIOLOGICAL COMPUTERS” and “IMMERSIVE VR EXPERIENCES - LIKE A LIFETIME.” Yet they ground these futuristic leaps in the tactile immediacy of drawing, where fine lines and symbolic detail—like the butterfly pinned against aged text in this 1996 print—evoke nature’s fragility amid technological sprawl. This interplay of media mirrors a career-long dialogue between the organic and the synthetic, the past and the yet-to-come.

Rooted in a robust career that spans bioart exhibitions, digital media installations, and critical theory scholarship, Knight’s practice critiques authority and control while embracing interdisciplinary innovation. The lab notes decry “BULLY NATION STATES” and “PROPAGANDA RULES,” urging a shift to “PRINCIPLES - RESPECT / COMPASSION / NO NATIONSTATES.” This socio-political edge, paired with his speculative fervour—“CYBORG BODY AS OUR FUTURE,” “NEW ORGAN TYPES - NEW CELLS”—positions his work as both mirror and manifesto, reflecting our era’s crises while daring to imagine alternative futures.

Through this art, Jason Knight seeks not just to provoke but to heal—to spark dialogue about technology’s dual-edged nature, science’s ethical stakes, and humanity’s capacity for love amid fragility. The work is a call to action, a lament, and a celebration, urging viewers to confront the chaos of now and co-create a planet/tomorrow worth surviving for.