Rongzhang Cao is a Chinese-born, Chicago-based artist working at the intersection of engineering and contemporary art. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Art & Technology / Sound Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), expected May 2026, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Textile Engineering from Soochow University.
Cao describes himself as a “Translator” — an artist who renders invisible complex systems into new artistic languages. His practice is research-based, grounded in fieldwork, documentation, and an engineering sensibility carried from scientific training into the studio.
His work The Alzheimer is a mechanical installation that erases charcoal text written in a phonetic transcription of his grandmother’s Hakka dialect, translating the process of memory loss into a physical act of destruction. His current thesis project translates the ecological crisis of Huanglongbing (Citrus Greening Disease) in his ancestral hometown of Xunwu, Jiangxi Province, into a wall-mounted kinetic sound sculpture using real geographic and agricultural materials.