In a recent feature for Contemporary Lynx, Kalinca Costa Sõderlund highlights the evocative work of emerging artist Yaxuan Liao, whose practice serves as both a profound inquiry into the posthuman condition and a form of resistance against the erosion of the self in the digital age.
Liao’s work, predominantly rooted in moving image and immersive installation, navigates the fragile boundary between human cognition and technological mediation. The article posits that Liao does not merely embrace the posthuman aesthetic—often characterized by cyborgs or sterile futurism—but instead interrogates the “posthuman question” through the lens of internal psychological states. By visualizing intangible human experiences such as memory, emotion, and trauma, her art questions what remains of the human subject when our inner lives are increasingly filtered through digital interfaces.
Crucially, the piece identifies a thread of “resistance” in Liao’s practice. In an era where algorithms predict behavior and the physical body is often rendered obsolete, Liao’s focus on the visceral and the emotional acts as a defiance of algorithmic reductionism. Her immersive visual experiences force the viewer to confront the persistence of organic consciousness, suggesting that true resistance lies in the preservation of the messy, unmanageable aspects of human interiority.
Ultimately, Sõderlund frames Yaxuan Liao as a vital voice in contemporary art, one who uses the very tools of the digital epoch to defend the complexity of the human spirit. Her work challenges us to redefine our identity not in opposition to technology, but in persistent, critical negotiation with it.
Posthumanism.Today 
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