Surface & Signal Press, an independent arts-research imprint operated by Jeekwai Art Co Ltd, has announced the publication of a peer-reviewed paper in the Proceedings of EVA London 2026. The paper, titled "Fixing Chicago Neighbourhood and New Nature: Simulation with Paper and Digital Printing," explores how digital printing can transform photographic images into physical surfaces that highlight the distinction between appearance and material reality. The open-access paper is available at https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/EVA2026.15.
Authored by Jiaqi Li, Wenru Xu, and Elke Reinhuber, the paper focuses on two artworks by Jiaqi Li: New Nature (2019) and Fixing Chicago Neighbourhood (2020). In New Nature, photographs of organic materials such as banana peel, chicken skin, plants, and caterpillars were processed into repeating digital textures and printed on paper. These prints were then used to create more than fifty hollow sculptural forms. The work contrasts the visual appearance of organic matter with a lightweight, constructed interior, drawing attention to the separation between surface and structure.
Fixing Chicago Neighbourhood began with photographs of damaged surfaces in Chicago, including cracks in roads, walls, paving, and transit stations. The damaged areas were digitally reconstructed and printed at approximately their original scale. The resulting paper images were placed over the damaged sites as temporary interventions. They did not repair the underlying material, but made visible the difference between an appearance of repair and a material repair.
The authors situate these projects between simulation, trompe l'oeil, and optical illusion. Rather than seeking flawless deception, the works retain visible seams, repeated textures, paper edges, and other material inconsistencies. These features allow viewers to recognize the construction of the image while it occupies physical space. The paper proposes the term "expanded trompe l'oeil" for contemporary practices that extend beyond illusionistic painting to include photography, digital printing, sculpture, installation, screens, projections, public interventions, and video-game aesthetics. It argues that the imperfect return of a digital image to material form can reveal a productive gap between virtual representation and physical objects.
The paper appears on pages 83-88 of the open-access Proceedings of EVA London 2026, published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. EVA London, or Electronic Visualisation and the Arts, is an interdisciplinary conference on art, visualisation, and digital technologies. The 2026 conference took place in London and online from July 13 to 17.
This announcement underscores the growing relevance of digital printing as a medium for critical art practice. By making the seams and imperfections of digital reproduction visible, Li's work challenges the seamless illusions often associated with digital media and raises questions about authenticity, repair, and materiality in urban environments.
