4D Baby 

Jiabao Li, Fumiko Futamura (Mathematician)

Optic illusion installation, 2026

Pregnancy is a four-dimensional transformation. Duchamp had Rrose Sélavy as a female counterpart, a fourth-dimensional version of himself. When a penis is turned inside out, it becomes a vagina. When Duchamp is turned inside out, he becomes Rrose. What, then, is the fourth-dimensional version of a pregnant body, of me? In space, turning a pregnant body inside out brings the baby out. In time, that same transformation is birth. 

This installation uses optical illusion to stage that shift. From a distance, the belly appears convex and the baby is outside. As the viewer approaches and moves to the side, the belly reveals itself as concave and the baby slips back inside. In another variation, the baby appears outside when viewed from an angle, but when the viewer moves directly above the belly, the baby is inside. Distance becomes pregnancy. Movement becomes birth. Space becomes time. By walking away from the sculpture, the viewer performs the act of birth.