About:
As a bio-inspired designer and interdisciplinary researcher, Shontelle Xintong Cai is currently based in Toronto and London. Her works explore the intersections of design, art, science and technology. She experiments with information visualization, experience system and multimodal interaction with audiovisual communication technologies, programmable materials, ‘moist media’ and life science data. Her art and design practices are influenced by her academic background related to visual communication, digital media studies and plant physiology. She considers Design as Discussion: a design protocol centring around the non-human and ecological approach by sensory narratives and fictional objects. She critically and parametrically engages in designing the innovative dialogues between complex scientific knowledge, social-ecological-technical system and cross-sensory experience.
Through interdisciplinary collaboration with practitioners, her demystify, critically interrogate, and transform scientific research into multisensory interactions, transmedia storytelling that engage audiences through tactile, embodied experiences of data and science systems. She opens the discussions about the inherent values of more-than-human participatory research, technoscientific interventions, synthetic bio-design, political ecology and objecthood to the potential audience. She has shared her creative practices and design paradigm through several awards, workshops, symposiums and exhibitions in China, Canada, France and the United Kingdom.
Recent Selected Awards:
2025 On-going
2024
The G-CROSS Creative Award (UK)
The North American Applied Art and Design Competition (CANADA)
2023
British Ecology Design Award (UK)
SGADC (Singapore)
Education:
Royal College of Art- MA Information Experience Design, with distinction of degree dissertation (2020-2022)
OCAD University-BDes Graphic Design, With Completion of a Minor in Digital & Media Studies (2016-2020)
*CV Request via email/DM on social media
Index
|| 2025
Participatory Design, Experience Design, Art therapy
- Trillium: Transcultural Alchemy of Healing (Cultural Amalgamates, on-going)
|| 2024
Visual Impairement, Machine Learning, Exhibit Design
- Chromosonic Scrolls- Exhibit Design (on-going)
- Visual Echo- Experience research & Design, Information Symbiote (on-going)
- Participatory Digital v.s Natural Remedies (on-going research)
- You Are Sensual in Vitro (online exhibition ver.)
|| 2023
Bio-material Visualization, Experience Design of Bio-material, Regenerative Design Research
- Affinitive Cellulose: Narration of bio-material with coffee ground
-
Indigenous botanical healing in digital realm (on-going)
|| 2022
Machine Learning in Visualization and Sonification; Morphology; Biotextile
- Augmenting Morphology: The Artificialis Historia- Bio-visualization, Machine Learning and Museum Narratives
- Augmenting Morphology: A Sonic Cabinet of Curiosity (Participated in IRCAM Forum, Paris)
- Augmenting Hybrid Specimen: Bacterial Communication
- Affinitive Cellulose research and prototype: Bacterial Cellulose in Fashion (Textile Circulatory Centre, RCA)
- Imaginary Landscape/Touch The Biofilm (Projection Mapping, Improvision, Collaborated with Lewes Music Group)
|| 2021
Techno-ecology; Epistolary Narrative; Bio-Data
- Deep Ecology and The Sublime- Online Workshop
- A Digital Utopia For The Institution- Spaculative Curation Plan
-
The Tail Market- Synthetic Anatomy
- Countermeasure- Forum Recorder
- You Are Sensual in Vitro: A Visual Letter of Microfluidic Brain-on-a-chip
- Reciprocal Symphony
- Sound Commission at Stella Papaioannou’s Project “The Sound Between Us”
- The Artificial C3 Plant Project
|| 2020
Posthuman Ecologies; Bio-hacking; Biological System
- Launch A Dream- Data sonification of a
Stratospheric Balloon Flight, Instrument Hacking, Autopoiesis (Ircam Forum, Paris) -
Dear Queen St - Locative Ambient Soundscape
- Posthuman Fungi Spirituality
- White Noise- Conceptual Visual Design For Monthly Sound Event
|| 2019
Posthuman Ecologies; Bio-hacking; Design Fiction
- Posthuman Who-Posthuman Embodiment Research
- Correlate You- Interactive Experience Model Design With Quantum Physics, Mind-uploading Room
-
“Botani”- Plant Science in Education
-
An Orgy of Voyeurs- Novelty Seeking Mechanism
- Comate- Mental Health Tracking
-
Synthetic Dreaming - Design For Debate
- AI Celebrity- Design Fictions, Installation
Deep Ecology and The Sublime
Royal College of Art - AcrossRCA / 2021
#AcrossRCA is an annual, week-long programme that offers students the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines.
Make Your Art & Design Process More Ecological
Session Leads: Shontelle Xintong Cai, Lea Rose Kara
Team Members: Jia Fei and WenQing Yao
Duration: 2 days
Session Outline:
In the context of post-humanism, the ecological connections and inherent worth of human and non-human beings are discussed in depth. How can we learn and reflect on theories of deep ecology, whilst at the same time reviewing the self from an ecological perspective? If other agencies are imbued with meaning or feeling of the sublime, would it be helpful for humans to reconsider their connections to those other agencies, and ecological space? As contributors to the creative field, how can we explain and create a sublime experience for our audience?
The two-day workshop aims to analyze and explore the possibilities and methodologies of creating the sublime by introducing a sensory experience. Since the workshop will be organized as a continuous session, with both days being tightly interconnected, we encourage participants to attend both days to gain the full experience. Day 1 will introduce the framework of deep ecology and the sublime and day 2 will enable you to experiment and put that theory into practice. Participants will be expected to contribute to group discussions and collaborate with others with the aim of presenting their ideas and outcomes to the big group.
Keywords: deep ecology, environment degradation, landscape, sublime, sensory experience.
Timetable:
Day One - Thursday 25 th February (Talk) 11am - 1pm GMT
Theories
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Introduction of Deep Ecology
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Introduction of the Sublime
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Introduction to Deep Ecology and the Sublime in art
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Joseph Beuys and Olafur Eliasson (15 mins) do we need to include the time for this?
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Marina Abramovic and the Eden Project
Day Two - Friday 26 th February (Workshop) 11am - 1pm GMT
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Summary of Day 1’s ideas and intro into the workshop’s aims
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Breakout room challenge 1
- Presentation of ideas/artworks to the general group + intro to challenge 2
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Breakout room challenge 2
- Presentation of ideas/artworks to the general group
- Concluding thoughts, questions and ideas for future work
Day 1 Talk
Day 2 Workshop
