Li Yao, currently based in Chicago, is a VR/XR artist, a designer, and an organizer for new media art events. His work addresses how our perceptions of reality are shaped through architectural design as well as corporate media campaigns. Li’s recent on-going project, Perfect Melon, in collaboration with Jas Brooks and Gabby Luu, is a VR installation and performance that incarnates a fictional company cultivating a consumer community entirely mediated by the corporation itself, beyond customers’ purchase of a soft drink. Li has exhibited in various venues including Altered Festival, The Wrong Biennale, Ars Electronica 2018, and Mykono Multimedia Festival. He received his MFA in Art and Technology Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018, and his BFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in 2016.

Peeing. Online. Together. :
( 2021 )
Collective Urination on Clubhouse

Perfect Melon :
( 2018- current )
VR multisensorial Performance
Keywords: Taste Display, Commercial Psychology, Picturesque, Synthetic Nature, Crystal Palace.

Commiserate Chicago 2020 :
( 2020 )
New Media Art Festival to share your feelings amidst of Chicago winter
Keywords: Chicago winter, Exhibition, Workshops, Talks, Hackathon.

Swim :

( current )
VR project on swimming pools
Keywords: Swimming pool design, Architectural Modernity.

Bunker :

( 2016- 2018 )
VR installation on Cold War architectures and modernity’s paradox
Keywords: Architectural Modernity, Paradox, Cold War.

Interplanetary Soul ( Yo Love’s Got Me ) :

( 2018 )
Collaboration with Chicago Funkadelic Musician Andre Gibson
Keywords: Psychedelic, Funk, Chicago Stepper Groove, Hall Music.

Red Oil Wonton :

( 2015 )
Serial glitch prints and installation on food and lingual translation. Currently showing at the Fixity Equals Death exhibtion as a part of The Wrong Biennale.
Keywords: Food, Language, Translation, Cross-cultrual, International.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? :

( 2016 )
Time-based installation on familial obligation
Keywords: Water, Torture, Time, Familial obligation.

Warden/ Prisoner :

( 2015 )
Video installation and architectural study on prison
Keywords: Prison, Panopticon, Subject-object.

SUSPENSION :

( 2014 )
Mixed media installation on surveillance in the domestic environment
Keywords: Surveilance, Domestic relationship.

Debate Before the Noose :

( 2014 )
Oil painting on the denial of death
Keywords: Death, Cognitive Dissonance, Clown.

© 2016-2021

li yao

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Journey Under the Midnight Sun 白夜行

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Journey Under the Midnight Sun
白夜行