Jian Gao

About

Jian Gao is a multimedia artist who primarily works through various media, including film, jewelry, and fashion With life at the heart of Jian’s work, she focuses on the relationship between humans and non-humans. By re-examining the value of other life forms in nature, she explores the future of non-human existence and virtual life through jewelry. Stimulating thought, engagement, and action through speculative scenarios, Jian Gao envisions a future of symbiotic ecology and equality of life for multi-species assemblages. Her practice challenges human-centered design approaches, incorporating non-human entities where non-human life is seen as an extension or component of the human body. She aims to further explore the relationship between human and non-human, virtual and reality.

“Mattid: Diabolica Series I-IV” is an art piece that combines digital storytelling and wearable jewelry, set in a futuristic world where a biotechnology company creates new human species through genetic recombination, and these experimental subjects are confined in the ‘Forgotten Zone.’ The protagonist, Ezra, is a hybrid entity of human and insect characteristics, experiencing a transformation from weakness to adapting to his new body. Inspired by H.R. Giger’s Alien character, the work brings the virtual character into reality, blurring the boundaries between virtual and reality through jewelry design. It explores the fusion of diversity and technology in a post-humanism context, challenging traditional concepts. This project includes two physical digital humans and five wearable jewelry pieces.