Jiahao Ji

Jiahao Ji is a visual artist, graphic designer, who works and lives in China. After BA education of Visual Communication in Renmin University of China, Jiahao continued her study in Royal College of Art of Experimental Communication pathway.

Jiahao’s practice is interdisciplinary and spans design, art, sociology and psychology using mixed medias such as illustration, photograph, video, installation and performance. Research interests include narrative/ visual metaphor/ psychology and emotion/ co-creation/ engagement and intervention. She is particularly interested in the theoretical perspectives drawn from these disciplines and how design is enmeshed within this.

“Coastline Utopia” project is based on a future artificial land plan in Longkou Bay in Yantai, Shandong. This imaginary government plan, seeks an imaginative, symbolic ‘solution’ for current unsolvable and contradictory community needs.

‘Intimacy can create spaces.’ This project explores intimacy as an inherently spatial phenomenon, how to create spaces by setting up relationships between interactive practices and space. Through “site-space-content” building incubators that “allow intimacy to happen” to create an intimate seaside community.

The design of architecture and incubators is based on the concept of future realistic design that speculate new concepts of urban design and public engagement to educate and create awareness about more sustainable, flexible, and mindful approaches to building and living.

Construction process of the architecture and incubators — Audio: Mystery of the Sea, 2015, by Opii, 【used 06/12/2021】

Coral as architecture material

Architecture prototype

Floating artificial island

Scientists extract biological material from a kind of new coral to construct a movable utopia that can float on the sea. These artificial biological spheres will not occupy or change the coastline and are friendly to marine ecosystems. The biological architecture has “cell division” process that will generate incubators. Each incubator provides communities spaces to create intimacy and intimate site.

Medium:

Digital, 3-dimensional animation

Size:

2 min 42 s

Meditation Space

Particle Buddha

The first series of incubators focus on self-intimacy space. Dispersive particles converge through the users’ consciousness to create a concrete Buddha. Through the mindfulness process, users could establish a mild relationship with healthy ego and neurotic ego.

Medium:

3-dimensional animation

Size:

45 s

Gym equipment — For future community use

Community Equipment I — Instruction for Equipment I: 1. Each side for male/female. People has special idiosyncrasy can choose freely. 2. Self-aligning and enjoyment. 3. Chat even make physical contact with other users.

Community Equipment II — Instruction for Equipment II: 1. Rest your head on the pillow 2. Enjoy the shared space with the other user 3. Feel relax to the interlaced conversation with the other user’s body

Community Equipment III — Instruction for Equipment III: 1. pick a preferred skateboard track 2. people being protected when falling down 3. people can get rest in kid zone through the filter.

Community Equipment IV — Instruction for Equipment IV: 1. get into the center of the balls. 2. people could feel that they are pushed into the center of ball because of the inflating. 3. people can have the social connection with others in the center of the ball.

Community Equipment V — Instruction for Equipment V: 1. Put your head into a frame 2. Wait for others to join 3. Enjoy the dizziness, eye contact and kiss with other users.

Community Equipment VI — Instruction for Equipment VI: 1. users hold the hand rails from two sides 2. pull the hand rail really hard 3.users could feel energy transfer from the counterpart 4. The springs in the equipment could maintain active

The second series of incubators will provide a series of ‘gym equipment’ for the community. These objects encourage interaction between users and emphasize the relationship between bodies and social space from everyday rhythmic structures.

Medium:

3D modeling

Size:

1m x 1m x 1m

Dating Site — Across species' intimacy

Since humans start the chapter of ocean colonization, the increased intimacy between the continents and the oceans has led to the formation of intimate relationships between terrestrial species and marine species.

In Incubator III, Coastline Utopia residents will be able to inject their sperm/eggs into mating with their favorite Marine creatures.

Medium:

Digital, 3-dimensional animation

Size:

1 min 45 s

Launch Project

Workshop handbook

Guidance/ Process of the workshop

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

In order to observe:

1. How personal experience can constitute collective experience.

2. How intimacy is created through relations between interaction practices and space.

3. The potential of public participation in designing their spaces.

I held a workshop to collect useful data for my subsequent design. The workshop provided clues and prototypes to design the content of incubators.

Through this workshop, we explored Intimate relationships as an inherent social need, where emotion could be discussed as a social, cultural and spatial phenomenon. In societies where the majority of people have their basic needs met—food, potable water, clothing, shelter—our need for intimacy, both physical and emotional, remains the one essential need that neither charitable organizations nor public welfare programs can satisfy. Except for the basic unit of intimacy between a pair, Intimacy exists between groups as well, within families and communities, giving rise to self-defined, self-identified collectives.

Medium:

Publication, Photography

Size:

210mm X 297mm (A4)

Jiahao Ji

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About

Royal College of Art