Erika Jean Lincoln crip-techno-tinkering with a pottery wheel during her residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

BIOGRAPHY

Erika Jean Lincoln (cogitechnaut) is a digital artist and a sculptor. Since the 2000’s she has been involved in the DIY electronic art and critical making cultures. Her art focuses on technologically entangled minds and bodies by making art machines that make her art.

Creator of the term crip-techno-tinkerism, Erika Jean’s art making takes a critical yet playful approach to new technologies and devices. She contests standardized art making methods preferring to re-engineer tools and processes that reflect her neurodivergent making and thinking.

Erika Jean’s artworks have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Canada and internationally. Exhibitions include - The Hole NYC, Science Gallery Ireland, Boston Cyberarts Gallery USA, Bauhaus-Archiv in Germany, North Dakota Museum of Art, State Library of Queensland Australia. Nationally at the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq, Plug-In ICA Winnipeg, Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Harbourfront Center Toronto, Biennale Nationale de Sculpture Contemporaine Québec and Gallery 1CO3 at the University of Winnipeg. She has been awarded numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and in 2025 she was included in the Sobey Art Award Longlist.

She has exhibited her work at festivals such as Pixxelpoint Slovenia, ArtBots NYC/Dublin, The Vancouver Underground Film Festival, Filmwinter Stuttgart, Java Museum Koln, Kino8 ½ Saarbrucken, AlloSphere Research Facility, University of California SB, and most recently at UKAI projects Carnival in Toronto.

Her artistic approach extends beyond exhibitions into residencies where she has co-facilitated seminars that encourage discussions between technology, neurodiversity, and art with neuroscientists, software engineers, and disability arts activists. These residencies include, the Banff Center for the Arts Canada, The Banff New Media Institute, Media Lab Prado Madrid, The Blue Mountain Center NY, Ingenuity Labs Research Institute Queens University. Her article, Crip-Techno-Tinkerism: A Neurodivergent Learning Style Meets Machine Learning, was published in 2024 by the Leonardo Journal.

a head and shoulders shot of the artist. She is a light skinned, brown haired woman wearing a black hoodie. She wears a fascinator made of wire and yarn. She stands in front of a drawing that hangs on a white wall.