Jing Wang Thomas is an award-winning artist and creative director based in the UK, a Cambridge Digital Humanities Methods Fellow (2025-2026), and an associate PhD researcher at the Digital Humanities and Education, University of Cambridge. Her research connects theatre and performance with digital technologies, examining materiality, surveillance and AI infrastructure. She was awarded an international scholarship from the Cambridge Trust in 2023 and is pursuing her PhD at St John's College, Cambridge. She was named St John's Scholar 2022 as a distinction in the Arts, Creativity, and Education MPhil degree at Cambridge. She holds an MA in Scenography from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, with a scholarship from Prof. Gavin Henderson (CBE). She is the founder of Diffraction Theatre, which seeks to inquire into artistic practice as a way of developing multidisciplinary ethical practice between the arts, sciences and digital technologies in the age of machine learning.
The latest project, Agent! Agent? (2025), is a self-service AI experience using a toy with a camera and microphone to make everyday data capture a subject of public inquiry. Project Decay (2024) focuses on art and technology in the age of AI hype and was presented at the Entangled Futures Festival in Cambridge. As augmented reality director, project Faust Shop 2.0 (2024) focuses on how participants critically engage with frontier technologies through the use of AR and AI in public spaces; this project was presented at the Cambridge Festival. Produced and directed, Reimagine Copenhagen 1941 (2023) has been presented at Prague Quadrennial, CZ. As creative designer and dramaturg, she participated in the virtual reality project AI-Musement Park (2023), headed and created by Dr Eleanor Dare, which was selected for the Mozilla Festival and the research project Life of Galileo (2022) was part of a digital research project at Cambridge University. She also produced and directed Ballad of the Pipa (2021) which is an intra-active VR theatre prototype exploring the relationship between storytelling and digital scenography and VR music theatre prototype The End of Time (2020).
Over the past 20 years, she has worked on many prominent productions as an associate director and scenographer in China, the UK, Europe and the USA, including Turandot (2023) at Opera Southwest, USA; The Diaries of John Rabe (2019) at the Berlin State Opera, Germany and Ronacher Theatre, Vienna, Austria; Lao Can Impression (2019) at Southbank Centre, London, UK; The Tenant (2017) at the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; 170 Days in Nanking (2017) at the Jiangsu Centre for Performing Arts, Nanking, China; Hamlet (2016) at the National Centre for Performing Arts, Beijing, China; Misery (2017) and Double (2010) at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, China; Wegger (2008) at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, Finland. Otello (2008) at the Dahalla Art Festival, Rättvik, Sweden; Normal Love (2014) at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, UK; 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (2014) at the 1st Toga Asian Theatre Director Festival in Japan. 170 Days in Nanking (2017) was shortlisted for the 2018 International Opera Awards in the UK.