Zhiqiang Li
- 4 days ago
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Zhiqiang Li is an installation artist who has exhibited in the United Kingdom, China, and Mongolia. Recent exhibitions include Bidston Observatory Center for Artistic Research in Liverpool, Inner Mongolia Exhibition Hall Inner, York Art Gallery, The Art and Design College of Hunan University, White Place London, Tate London, and Lumen studio gallery in London. He is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, widely considered to be the finest art school in the world and has been published in The Journal Design Issue by MIT Press.
Technological and light-based, Zhiqiang Li installations often deal with how systems and information relate to the human condition. From scientific discovery to academic research, he engages with the audience using interactive light design and sensory technology. Conceptually complex, his most notable installations include Moon-Shot (Moonscapes), A&I, and Mistake (Tate Britain). In Moon-Shot (Moonscapes), Zhiqiang Li uses a multimedia installation to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon. The work reflects the alluring qualities of celestial bodies, as the artist uses Chinese mythology as a reference to how chasing after illusions leads to unwanted circumstances, such as monkeys falling in water trying to grasp at reflections of the moon. Upon closer inspection, Moon-Shot (Moonscapes) appears like a hallucinogenic laboratory, complete with intricate glass-like configurations and translucent light projections. This installation represents the aesthetic qualities of scientific discovery, beyond the knowledge of cold-data, reflecting a romanticism about learning and the advancement of human kind.
A&I is a sensory-based installation where the artist has coded a computer program to interact with him by the letter ‘A’. The computer was designed to mimic the artist’s movements, but instead behaved unpredictably and emanated unusual visual effects. These glitches represent art through mistake and unintended consequences, as a result, the piece can be described as improvisational and almost like a performance or fluxus in nature. Similarly, Mistake (Tate Britain) is an installation of tentacle-like forms grasping at the various shelves within the Tate Archives. Zhiqiang Li was inspired by the various errors and amendments made to hand-written notes within the library. Such correction of data, reveals the fragility of humanity against the cold efficiency of machines. The installation, monstrous in form, seems to behave like a web to indicate the interconnectivity between humans in order to advance knowledge.
Moon-Shot (Moonscapes) (pictured above) reflects a cognition towards human discovery. Zhiqiang Li summarizes the perfection of celestial bodies in a romantic gesture of recreating an experience of the moon with his own interpretation. Through clever light design and intricate props, the artist uses sensors to have the installation react to the audience as if the work of art was a living entity rather than an inanimate work of art. Such applications makes Moon-Shot (Moonscapes) a clever piece of integrative applications to accentuating human curiosity and our desire to explore the unknown.
The installation work of Zhiqiang Li represents imaginative use of analogue technological applications with a genuine human touch to reflect curiosity and an ideal on the pursuit of human advancement as well as knowledge. His use of sensory technology, light design, and direct conceptual references creates artworks rich in conveying direct implications of our relationship to exploration and discovery. A deeply conceptual artist, Zhiqiang Li’s installations represents how interdisciplinary practices leads to avant-garde outcomes, such as the aesthetic and intellectual attributes of using technology and research to accentuate the human form and cognition for deeper understanding and intimate reflection.
