The divide between “reality” and “simulation” has been litigated to death, to the point that it feels hack to indulge the conversation much more—what does something as unrelated to our everyday gripes and celebrations as abstract ontology have to provide us at this point? However, when the dichotomy is approached with a sense of humor, frivolity, even, and dosed with a hefty serving of humanity (our experiences mean something!), navigating this boundary becomes a generative exercise that inspires artists like performer, clothesmaker, photographer, and more, Yiling Zhao. Central to every facet of her work is a sense of humanity that, while deeply rooted in a desire for connection, is fundamentally transitory, and she’d like that I chose that word, as she made clear when asked about how her work’s humanity connects with the physical beings that embody it:

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Yiling Zhao: My relationship to bodies goes back to this idea of “transness.”

My engagement with what I believe to be transness is all about making it harder for humans to perceive other humans as less than human.

It’s more of a spiritual relationship to transness, and it’s not even confined to gender—I take the idea of “trans-” as a prefix with which to approach everything: transnationalism, transculturalism, transmission… As a drag artist, I approach the body in this kind of way, especially in my case, I’m exploring masculinities and uniforms and stuff like that.

Em Seely-Katz: What uniform would you choose if you had to wear the same thing every day like a cartoon character?

Y: My uniform would have to follow my belief that comfort is the new punk. At heart, yes, I’m a punk, and as you know, I did some work with Philipp Kern on “PONK”—like a punk monk. Love that.

My uniform would have to be something I could walk a mile in, something I could run in, something with deep pockets, very functional.

That’s why I love things like trompe l’oeil prints, because you can embody so much, but you can still just be wearing a lycra top, and it’s stretchy and comfy, but you could have an entire print of a royal’s attire on you without compromising mobility at all. Beautiful but comfortable.

‍E: I never thought about trompe l’oeil like that.

Y: Let’s say I have a top printed with a tie, but I’m not wearing an actual tie—I’m communicating the same thing, aren’t I?

‍E: I always thought of trompe l’oeil not as a lie, because it’s too obvious to be a lie, but as some kind of concession, like “I can’t be bothered to wear the ‘real thing’.” I guess maybe I’ve had a case of simulacrum phobia. People place so much importance on wearing the “actual thing,” even if it’s uncomfortable or doesn’t make any sense…

Y: We’re past that! I’ve been dabbling in clothes making, I have a brand called Plum Spit Milk that’s all trompe l’oeil.

Everything I do for it embodies that sense of transness we talked about.

It all transmits to each other, and my practice is transdisciplinary, my clothes making will inform things like my movement direction and other visual art later on.

E: What do you see the relationship being between the people who wear your clothes and the clothes themselves?

Y: My personal relationship to clothing is not that far from costuming, because in my day-to-day life, the act of getting dressed—like pretty much everything I do—I treat as some sort of contemporary theater.

My clothing is my costume. That type of camp sensibility does come from uniform costumes, from that sort of artifice, the absurdity and dysfunctionality.

My general desire is for everyone to be ok with being a bit camp and to make their everyday modality a bit more theatrical. I think it’s so fun.

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I used to be a raver… maybe I still am? It’s not a big part of my life anymore. In the London scene, the raves that I would go to, people really show up, dress up, and they look good, but sometimes they’re in these killer outfits—killer in more than one way, they look uncomfortable!

For me, as I said, comfort is punk, so I’m not about to put myself through all of this body stuff unnecessarily.

‍E: I think it’s interesting how trompe l’oeil kind of… aestheticizes dysfunctionality? It’s not fooling anyone when you have a printed-on breastplate, say, people know it’s not real armor, and there’s something specific about the aesthetic of a garment that’s trying to look like something without trying to function like the thing itself. However, its dysfunctionality has another layer: it can be super practical, which loops around and makes it functional again! That’s super cool.

Y: Exactly!