Anti-utoplant

Anti-utoplant, 2023
Interactive 3D virtual environment · AcrossRCA 2023 homepage cover

Anti-utoplant is an interactive 3D virtual environment that explores the ethical and ecological conditions of digital culture. Developed as a virtual plant utopia, the work connects online anonymity, digitally native cultures and anthropocentric models of progress within a shared artificial ecology.

The project began with research into Generation Z’s relationship with networked media, where identity, speech and judgement are shaped through partial visibility, repetition and circulation. In these spaces, a comment, image or gesture can move beyond its original context and become part of a larger system of social response. Anti-utoplant treats this condition as a shift in how responsibility is formed, perceived and distributed through digital systems.

The work extends this question into ecological thought. It reflects on human-centred models of progress that position nature as a resource to be managed, optimised or consumed. Within the virtual plant utopia, artificial plants become active figures of dependency, care and coexistence. They form a speculative ecology where technological life and organic imagination are placed into relation. By bringing together online behaviour, digital identity and ecological imagination, Anti-utoplant constructs a space for considering how responsibility is reorganised between self, system and environment. The work positions digital space as a site where ethical relation and ecological relation can be sensed together. Jiang led the project’s research direction, conceptual framework and visual production, developing the 3D modelling, spatial composition and interactive environment. Her role brought together research, image-making and virtual world-building, shaping the work’s visual language and ecological structure. The project was selected for the AcrossRCA 2023 homepage.