Body in torque, protected, 2025

Oil on linen, aluminium wire
40 x 138 cm

This work visually and algorithmically (de)constructs the human body in torque—contorted, moving, yet balanced. Drawing from queer, post-humanist thought, Li explores the human body as a cybernetic ecosystem that evolves with technological advancements and societal power structures. Here, Li investigates the representational entanglement between digital and organic embodiments by (de)constructing the body visually and computationally.

Inspired by the similarly fluid nature of identity and mathematics, Li uses a Python script to convert his body into a topological gradient field, rendered in 3D and which will be constructed with aluminum wire. The three oil paint sketches will be covered by this armour—which also appears as a cage. Does it liberate or contain the figure below? The artist attempts to present the body, and its identity, as both a product of technological force and a site of resistance to them.