Yidi Wang – SAIC Graduate Exhibition 2023

SAIC SHOWS 2023 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Graduates

SAIC SHOWS 2023 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Yidi Wang

Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Graduate Exhibition Two (May)

wangyidi24@gmail.com

Yidi Wang is a Chinese interdisciplinary new media artist, product designer and interaction designer. She is currently studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago aiming to receive her MFA, majoring in Emerging Technologies within the Design Objects department.

She used to work a lot on using design to solve social problems by interactive installation. But during her MFA period, she creates new media work including bio-art, electronics, video installations, and real-time performances that lead to discussions. She investigates the exemplification of non-human creatures to construct dialogs of gender and rights in post-human settings which shares a rise to part as a critical location for introduction and sensorial engagement to bait viewers into new advanced and topical regions by means of their most identifiable, recognizable forms.

Yidi Wang - Reproduction, Rebuilt, Recreate

Reproduction, Rebuilt, Recreate, 2022, tin foil, water pipe, condoms, 30''x35.4x20''

Yidi Wang - Reproduction, Rebuilt, Recreate

Reproduction, Rebuilt, Recreate, 2022, tin foil, water pipe, condoms, 30''x35.4x20''

Yidi Wang - Reproduction, Rebuilt, Recreate

Reproduction, Rebuilt, Recreate, 2022, tin foil, water pipe, condoms, 30''x35.4x20''

Can I see non-human beings as a continuation of my life? I want to create a work that has discussions about post-human from my own perspective. Body extension, cyborg, the bionic man, the combination of carbon-based organisms and silicon-like elements are all topics that are constantly being discussed in post-humanity. Post human should not be based solely on the human desire to separate consciousness and body rights. It's whether our understanding of embodiment also applies to all living things other than humans. Are we able to give all kinds of "bodies" the right to be embodiment? Can non-human beings also have the right to incarnate? Be it androids, computers, stones, animals or bacteria.

Artist Statement – Yidi Wang

You could say I am a feminist; You could say I am a cyborg; You could say I am a post-human.

I create new media work including critical software, electronics, internet, video installations, and real-time performances that lead to discussions. I am an observer of encounters of female body in different eras and social contexts. I create performances inviting viewers to engage. Motherhood, parenthood, sex and gender are the hack way of me to have conversations with the audiences. A critique of power dynamics within the concurrent technological and social systems we’re building around ourselves is central to my work.

I am working with biology art. Investigating the exemplification of non-human creatures to construct dialogs of gender and rights in posthuman settings share a rise to part as a critical location for introduction and sensorial engagement to bait viewers into new advanced and topical regions by means of their most identifiable, recognizable forms. How does information lose its physical form? How are cyborgs constructed into technological products and cultural icons? How humans become post-human?

My present body appears frequently in and around my work, with a raw and exposed vulnerability and strength as powerful methods of forging connections with audiences through the sublime. Each work feels like an endeavor to hack my way out of myself and into closeness with others.