Surface & Signal Press has announced the publication of a peer-reviewed paper in the Proceedings of EVA London 2026 that examines how photography, digital processing, and paper printing can turn images into physical surfaces. The open-access paper, titled "Fixing Chicago Neighbourhood and New Nature: Simulation with Paper and Digital Printing," is available at https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/EVA2026.15.
The paper, authored by Jiaqi Li, Wenru Xu, and Elke Reinhuber, considers two artworks by Jiaqi Li: New Nature (2019) and Fixing Chicago Neighbourhood (2020). In New Nature, photographs of organic materials including banana peel, chicken skin, plants, and caterpillars were processed into repeating digital textures and printed on paper. The prints became more than fifty hollow sculptural forms, setting the visual appearance of organic matter against a lightweight, constructed interior. This draws 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 actual material repair.
The authors place 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 let viewers 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, visualization, and digital technologies. The 2026 conference took place in London and online from July 13 to 17.
Surface & Signal Press is an independent arts-research communications imprint operated by Jeekwai Art Co Ltd. The imprint publishes factual, accessible communications about contemporary art, visual culture, digital media, and research-led creative practice. Its work focuses on how images, materials, and technical systems shape public and everyday environments.
The significance of this paper lies in its articulation of how digital images return to physical form in ways that highlight rather than hide their constructed nature. By examining the gap between virtual and material, the authors offer a framework for understanding contemporary art practices that engage with urban spaces and everyday materials, raising questions about simulation, repair, and perception in an increasingly digital world.
