Jialong Li

Jialong Li is a visual designer and artist. His work often takes the form of experimental publications, 3D art, and video installations.

During his studies at the Royal College of Art, his creative practice focused on the relationships between identity, materiality, technology, and symbols within a post-human context. He is dedicated to revealing the hidden control mechanisms in everyday life, sparking ongoing imagination about identity, existence, and future cognition, and exploring how narrative structures and symbolic systems intervene in and shape individual cognition and social identity.

CONTACT
2367156992ljl@gmail.com

Project

1. Half/

<VR Experience Website>
https://newart.city/show/cr-space-1

#Installation #VR #3D Printing Art
(2025)

#An exploration of posthuman identity and the narrative of objects

I explore how, in a posthuman context, objects created by the invisible power structures of society no longer serve needs but quietly shape and distinguish identities. The daily interactions between individuals and specific objects gradually form a ‘narrative anchor’: an unconscious yet persistent mechanism for regulating identity.

The project simulates a future governance structure through a fictional system named Janus. It reveals that when objects themselves become tools for designing identity, our narratives are no longer self-directed but become a posthuman script continuously generated by the system. Through installations and virtual reality experiences, audiences are immersed in this control mechanism, prompting them to re-examine their relationship with objects and resist the traditional notion of objects as passive entities, while contemplating the independence of existence, memory, and emotion.

2. Informal Mathematician

<Winner of the 2025 DNA Design Award>

#Installation #Typeface #Publication
(2023)

#An Exploration of Typographic Systems on Logic, Language and Contingency

Informal Mathematician is a conceptual project that fuses typography, symbolic systems and human cognition. Inspired by the behaviour of a veteran lottery player who predicts the winning numbers of the double lottery over a long period of time, the project mimics the logical reasoning patterns of mathematicians and delves into the cyclical relationship between computation and belief.

By constructing a device that simulates the calculation of the probability of winning a lottery, the project investigates the generation of arbitrary symbols and refines them into a unique font system. The system is codified into a reinterpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which aims to explore the intertwined relationship between cultural cognition and logical reasoning. It reflects on how language and logic are individually constructed and mutually validated as human understandings.

Through this work, Informal Mathematician seeks to blur the boundaries between structured logic and human intuition, offering a visual and philosophical commentary on the ways in which we seek patterns and meanings in systems dominated by chance.

3. 42

#Video #Typeface #Publication
(2023)

This project centers on the phenomenon of landless peasants in my hometown, Henan Province, occupying community greenery for planting in resettlement areas, and the competitive “territorial” behavior of this group of people in a fierce land grab. The research found that the development of urbanization has led to the expropriation of agricultural land in rural areas on the outskirts of cities, and that a large number of landless peasants have been forcibly transferred to inner-city spaces in multiple batches. The proliferation of landless groups, loss of skills, and attachment to the land have led to the fragmentation of community green areas and the reorganization of them into individual planting areas.

Through the land auctions, we represent the contradiction between the group pattern of Chinese urban society and the differential pattern of vernacular society, exploring the period of transition after the forced movement of farmers from the differential pattern to the regimentation pattern after the loss of land, as well as the contradictions between the people and the social conflicts that arose during this period.

4. Janus Narrative Archive

#Publication
(2025)

In a posthuman world where every action is pre-programmed and choreographed, the Janus system operates like a silent playwright, orchestrating each detail of daily life. The interaction between individuals and objects transcends mere utility, becoming a form of deep narrative writing—through the organization, display, and reuse of things, it quietly shapes human identity, emotional trajectories, and social positioning.

Centered on the concept of “narrative anchors,” this book constructs a visual archive of everyday discipline through images, texts, and material experiments. Documenting the entire process—from field observations and symbolic language development to the creation of fictional worlds—it serves both as a critical inquiry into posthuman identity politics and an artistic simulation intervention. It presents a non-decipherable symbolic language generated by the Janus system.

This systematically constructed symbol design deliberately avoids traditional “decodeability,” aiming to simulate the asymmetry of information and the covert nature of identity manipulation within power systems. Each symbol functions both as an instrument of control and a medium for narrative, silently documenting and reconstructing individual modes of existence. Through this work, viewers are prompted to reconsider: Have seemingly mundane objects already become internalized as “institutional interfaces” that dictate our behavioral logic and identity affiliations? Within the entangled relationship between objects and humans, can we truly escape the system's design?

5. Oral History

#Archive #Installation #Publication
(2024)

This project intends to study the phenomenon of the disappearance of oral history narrative transmission in the Chinese context. Oral history is an informal historical category that forms a chain of transmission depending on time and people, and China's compressed modernization development has split the link between collective and individual memory.

Taking my maternal grandmother, an oral narrator, as an entry point, we reconstruct the auditory and visual to establish a contemporary oral history transmission chain through a three-generation transmission experiment. Expression of historical teleology tends to be consequentialist oriented, with the compression and homogenization of the historical context (the nature of history and its formation process).

6. New Testament

#Typeface
(2024)

This project draws its design inspiration from a 16th-century church ledger. I took visual cues from Gothic cathedrals and rose windows, distilling modular units that formed the foundation of the entire typeface design.

Architectural drawings of Gothic stained glass windows reveal their iconic arched structures, which are central to the visual identity of rose windows. Simultaneously, the chain-like elements suspended from pillar structures in Gothic architecture also became an important reference in my concept. By combining these key architectural features, I developed a modular foundation for the typeface: geometric units formed by cutting, rotating, and duplicating circular and curved shapes—echoing both the intricate patterns of rose windows and the hidden geometry of column structures through negative space.

As I iterated and experimented with compositions, I established a type grid based on this module. The resulting letterforms retain the vertical elegance and ornate quality typical of Gothic architecture, while also incorporating the stroke characteristics of 16th-century ecclesiastical script. Symbolic decorative elements were embedded into the details to evoke the spiritual expression rooted in the original religious context. I named the typeface New Testament, referencing the narrative imagery often depicted in rose windows centered on the stories of the New Testament. The name also reflects an intent to reinterpret these ancient symbols through a new visual language imbued with contemporary relevance.

@ Updated on 07/2025