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.
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Recent Selected Awards & Exhibitions:
2026
Fête des Caractères Chinois 2026, La Mairie du 13e Arrondissement, Paris
2025
Art Fund Dubai, Shortlist (Finalist notified in December; UAE)
PREMIO ROCA (Spain)
UK-AADA IAADC International Art & Design Competition (UK)
London Design Festival- 52HZ Echo, Gallery House, London
Art Fund Dubai, Exhibition in the Paris and Al Shindagha Museum (Dubai) (TBD)
Oriental Odyssey, Perfect World Digital Art, Outernet London, London
FaB 2025 -Fringe Art Bath(Human-Machine Co-creation), Bath
2024
The G-CROSS Creative Award (UK)
The North American Applied Art and Design Competition (CANADA)
2023
British Ecology Design Award (UK)
SGADC (Singapore)
2022
Royal College of Art (RCA) 2022 in Collection with Good Vibration, Robots Has Feelings Too, and Make it Last categories
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
|| 2025Experience Design, Art therapy, Post-human Bio-aesthetics
|| 2025
Participatory Design, Experience Design, Art therapy
- Trillium: Transcultural Alchemy of Healing (Cultural Amalgamates, Collective Ecological Memory)
- In Cyanotoxin's Wake: A Visual Poem on Toxin and Freshwater (Climate Change, Ethical Ecological Boundaries)
-
Aquatic Respire: A Water Ode to Justice and Symbiosis
|| 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
A Imaginary Landscape/Touch The Biofilm (Projection Mapping, Improvision, Collaborated with Lewes Music Group)
Data Sonification, Bio Art, Chamber Music | 2022
"The Augmented Biofilm: Harmonies – The film explores the possibility of audio-visual communication by mixed bio-visualization and chamber music. The visual artist and musicians work together to stimulate and paint a picture of the growing bacterial cellulose by digital canvas and soundscape.
"They are ubiquitous and delightful in digital and nature. They burble and harmonize through the unseen realms." In collaboration with the musician in Lewes Music Group, this work depicts the delicate movement of biofilm with chamber music and data sonification. The artificial hybrids of biofilm are generated and animated by machine learning and visual programming. The original programme of this work is "Pastorale and Fioritura " composed by Lance Mok.
https://vimeo.com/710163667
Composer: Lance Mok
Performer: Lance Mok (Piano) & Wong Ka Wing Karen (Flute)
Video & Sound Editor: Shontelle Xintong Cai
"They are ubiquitous and delightful in digital and nature. They burble and harmonize through the unseen realms." In collaboration with the musician in Lewes Music Group, this work depicts the delicate movement of biofilm with chamber music and data sonification. The artificial hybrids of biofilm are generated and animated by machine learning and visual programming. The original programme of this work is "Pastorale and Fioritura " composed by Lance Mok.
https://vimeo.com/710163667
Composer: Lance Mok
Performer: Lance Mok (Piano) & Wong Ka Wing Karen (Flute)
Video & Sound Editor: Shontelle Xintong Cai