Seduction of The Surface, single-channel video on loop 15’58’’, isomalt sugar, Chinese Huaqing ink, music reactive flickering LED device, 2022. 
Seduction of The Surface, single-channel video on loop 15’58’’, isomalt sugar, Chinese Huaqing ink, music reactive flickering LED device, 2022. 
Seduction of The Surface, single-channel video on loop 15’58’’, isomalt sugar, Chinese Huaqing ink, music reactive flickering LED device, 2022.
These ballrooms are open from early evening, mostly mid-aged people. They come after dinner or after work to have fun, socialize or digest food.
The dazzling colorful lights turn everyone’s skin pink. With the rhythmic pop music and ambiguous lyrics, seemingly, people’s relationship is entertaining and wild.
As Baudrillard believes in his book Seduction, seduction does not seek deeper meaning, it always stays on the surface. Precisely because of its superficiality and meaninglessness, seduction is a game that dissolves hierarchical patterns in gender, power, and production.
Zhiqi Li’s grandparents used to buy her sugar paintings which are made using a spoon with melted sugar in it and draw zodiac signs out of the liquid sugar on a cold marble slab to solidify the sugar painting. Now, this street food art is disappearing in China.
The sculpture is made of isomalt sugar and Huaqing ink which creates a translucent yet information-bearing surface, as a way to show the blurry memories and exhilarating nostalgia inside.
