LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) is, by essence, a game of embodiment and freedom. But when access to digital tools is conditional, what remains of our ability to play, to create our own narratives? Are we still actors, or merely subscribers trapped in a loop of consumption?

If You Can't LARP, You'll Cry examines the transformations of digital production within a subscription economy that turns technology not into a tool we own, but into a service we submit to. Through a hypnotic digital ballet, clay sculptures come to life, orchestrated by a hybrid figure — both puppeteer and captive — with a virtual reality headset firmly strapped to their head.

In this digital ritual, the names of cyberattacks resonate like modern prayers. If You Can't LARP, You'll Cry prophesizes: if our identities vanish as soon as the subscription expires, the ultimate revelation might just be... at the edge of time.

There are many legends in human culture that are closely associated with visual taboos, such as one might be fossilized upon seeing the prohibited object or lose one's life due to gradual weakening after seeing one's own reflection in water. The action of seeing is itself both a temptation and a curse. Computer graphics offers humanity a fresh way of viewing, but at the same time, imposes a new curse as well. In Boring Gray, he collages numerous video game images, stock photographs and model databases into an enormous corpse that is similar to a dying monster in video games who has been whispering all sorts of visual curses.

In The Matrix, Neo shouts, "This is not real!" in anger as he learns about the truth of the Matrix. Morpheus smiles and asks, "What is real?" What is real? Twenty years after the movie was presented to the world, the question has become even more intriguing today. Technology allows humans to take in information in almost superhuman quantities. We are fearful of information that is unable to be determined as true or false while we project our desires onto virtual, digital flesh. A piece of information may not be true, but what about the fear and desire it triggers? Is there such a thing as false fear? What about unreal desire? important_message.mp4 starts with a series of internet conspiracy theories and explores human life in the face of internet and technological advancements.

This work uses a projector to sculpturally depict spoken language, blending painting and sculpture. Through mapping projection onto sculptural forms, it aims to create a more organic relationship between the image and the viewer. Unlike traditional images that reduce the viewer's bodily power, this work allows the viewer, within such a relationship, to move freely through the space and actively choose viewing angles. It depicts the frantic ramblings of a dying person in delirium. Through joyful singing of military songs, it explores themes of love, patriotism, and other emotional expressions. If it is to be given any meaning, it lies in the spontaneous imaginings that unexpectedly emerge during the artist's ongoing struggle with the media — fantasies about the work itself, fragmented and impossible to take full form.

This work uses a nonlinear narrative to depict various episodes surrounding a car accident. In the corner against the wall, large piles of scattered cardboard boxes are stacked. A projector shines on these boxes in an illogical way, with each box painted with a tiny theatrical scene. Projections of insects crawling connect each bizarre, animated scene, leading viewers into a narrative structure that seems almost endless.

The fragmented nature of this work encourages viewers to choose their own viewing duration, positions, and interpretations of the story. Typically, image creation requires planning, achievable only through rational pre-production, filming, editing, and image computing. However, Li Yi-Fan questions this rationality and completeness through "scatteredness," making the work more like a document that references art itself in this incomplete state rather than a finished work — capturing such a document-like state of living.

This work stems from a film project the artist abandoned. He had created extensive sets, puppets, and scripts for a puppet animation, but was unable to begin filming for various reasons. The project was eventually left unfinished. Later, the leftover sets and props reminded the artist of the period when the project was created, full of ideas that had only been conceptualized but never actualized. As a result, he uses a projector to invoke these discarded objects, recreating scenes that mirror his life: fragmented, trivial, and unable to take form.

In this servo-controlled puppet animation, the protagonist encounters three questions and three answers during a beach walk. Crafted with motors to animate puppets and shot as a low-tech pornographic short, the work portrays the protagonist constantly contemplating different desires and the choices they present. It also captures the melancholy of passing time amid a flood of carnal fantasies. Displaying the work on a tiny television screen intensifies the sense of intimacy of the viewing experience.