仿生学地狱
Artificial Afterlife
2025 WorldBuilding and Product Design
Embedded Files
For my Worldbuilding class, we created a fictional world inspired by a real phenomenon, then designed products for the world throughout the semester. I started by researching biomimicry, human-made designs that imitate the natural systems and functions of living organisms. Inspired by this idea of artificial life, I created a world of the dead based on the ancient Chinese concept of the bureaucratic afterlife, 地狱. According to Chinese legend, the underworld realm is a duplicate or alternative version of the Earthly realm, complete with houses, furniture, gardens, and even a credit system, ruled by ten magistrates, each in charge of a specific domain. In my world, the dead carry on in imitation of their former lives, including engineering and designing products inspired by nature.
Background
Background
Convenience Store
Located in the upside-down mobile city of the fourth level is a compact convenience store that has become a regular stop for commuters. Connected to the ceiling tracks above by a secure cable, the store also receives some of its water and energy from the 3rd level. Like most of the buildings, this store has an organic shape, resembling a fruit or flower. This convenience store serves as the central hub of the story where the characters gather to tell stories and discuss their lives.
Similar to the convenience stores in our world, they offer many services and products to meet the needs of the dead. Some are similar to the ones we use, while others are unique to the experience of being dead. For further convenience, customers have the option to pay up front for products through an app that holds them in “cloud accounts” that they can pick up at a later time. Given the vertical nature of the city, the convenience store contains five levels with a central elevator to access each level.
Infrastructure
The realm of the dead consists of a massive subterranean river cavern with ten levels, which are interconnected, sharing resources and energy. The river carves out new domains as the population requires, but resources are still limited, so the cities have grown efficiently and compactly. The cities are fueled by sustainable sources of energy, including hydroelectric, geothermal, and wind. Resources are mined from the surrounding cavern, harvested from the river, and produced in the second-level labs. The realm is developing to become self-sufficient, recycling all of its resources and energy.
Life and all living organisms are revered and admired by the dead, who seek to emulate its functions in their land. But the world of the dead is not a loyal replica to the world of the living, for the dead have different needs. Everything found in this land is a reinterpretation, a translation of life. Cities are brimming with mobile buildings that appear and act more like organisms than constructions. Individuals can connect to the buildings and vehicles through their genetic codes and control them.
Bionic Vessels
Bionic vessels are the artificial bodies everyone inhabits. While the overall shape is humanoid, certain characteristics like skin color depart from humans, instead taking inspiration from other organisms.
Everyone is equipped with an irreplaceable memory chip that contains memories of their lived lives. The “chip” is not a constructed tech piece, but a biotic fragment collected at death and uploaded into the bionic vessel. Unfortunately, the memory chip gradually degrades over time to the point where the memories can no longer be accessed. The eventual loss of this chip is considered the “second death,” but many souls are unaware of when this occurs.
One of the greatest mysteries scientists are currently studying is where the experiences and memories of their dead lives are stored. Due to their studies on an individual who has lost his memory chip, they can determine that new experiences are not recorded on the chip.
Every bionic vessel also carries a unique alterable artificial genetic code that acts as their ID card upon which they can upload information used to open doors, board trains, etc. This code and its memory chip are transferred during vessel upgrades.
One Page Explorer Description
One Page Explorer Description
The dawn of your afterlife breaks with the type of artificial white light that floods a room, washing away color with its brilliance, and sterilizing every corner. As you blink away the vestiges of sleep, the pulsing white haze subsides, and a waiting room emerges around you. Most seated individuals appear unconscious, submerged in the same dreamless slumber you have awoken from. Instead of the neutral hues of human skin, their skin is tinged with the colors of flower petals, just like your own. A clerk at the counter calls your name, and it sounds as if they are standing beside you. Rising from the chair, your movements feel smooth, but mechanical, none of the little imbalances, the little adjustments you remember. Like a sponge, the ground is porous and cushions your steps as you approach the smiling clerk.
“Welcome to the afterlife! I hope you’re adapting to the bionic vessel well. Just complete this paperwork, and then I’ll give you a tour.”
On the sixth level, the river has carved out a lake, artificial islands drifting on the surface like jellyfish, their tentacles weaving among each other to deliver energy and other resources. Tiny shapes, that you presume to be boats, dot the harbors, navigating waterfront markets. Lower down, the air feels cooler and more humid.
After the whirlwind energy of the levels above, the quiet darkness of the ninth level is a soothing reprieve. Milky water gurgles over rocks, dissolving into plumes of fog. Softly glowing, fungal-shaped buildings cling to the rocks, which have been carved in places to mimic twisted, knotted trees.
As you take the elevator down from the first level, which is a ring of registration offices, a floral fragrance rises from below. Peering down, you see a network of vibrant cables weaving throughout the space like a forest canopy. The guide confirms your thoughts, explaining that this is an artificial forest and that the network is modeled after mycelium root systems to transfer energy and service to all the levels. The elevator descends into one of the tree trunks, colored veins pulsing with energy through the glass-like tree. Music is playing in the elevator, and you recognize it as Sibelius’ “Tapiola”.
The city on the forest floor is bustling, but the people aren’t the only ones contributing to the movement. The guide informs you that only the rocks, water, and air are natural, and as you watch, the vibrant coral-shaped buildings seem alive, humming and pulsing, a web of rivers coursing through them like veins.
Constructed within the waterfalls flowing from the edge of the sixth level, the seventh takes advantage of its location to produce hydroelectric energy, filling the domed city with a constant hum of turbines and crashing of water. A fine mist of water in the air casts rainbows throughout the city.
The subway soon emerges in what appears to be another city, but its flower-like buildings hang down from the floor above, increasing in depth rather than height. A dizzying network of tracks traverses the open space below, and the buildings above move to meet the trains, gliding along tracks set in the ceiling above. The coordination in the sky mesmerizes you as you disembark onto the massive, buzzing transportation hive below to transfer to the lower-level trains.
Waterfalls feed into the eighth level, a cavernous realm illuminated by the glowing rivers and neon city lights. The city’s fervent energy feels electric against your skin, fragments of music dance in your ears, and the smell of baked goods fills your sinuses. The guide informs you that this is the level of potential and prosperity, where the dead live out their aspirations of wealth and fame.
Rather than danger, the darkness of the tenth level feels like a comforting blanket. As the newest level, it is sparsely populated yet doesn’t feel desolate. As you walk past the sprawling, skeletal estates, the gentle bubbling of the river beside you sounds like a lullaby. Your guide shares that some believe if you follow the river outside the ten levels, you will find your way back to the world of the living. But, no one knows if this is true for none who have embarked have returned.
Objects
Objects
4th Level Self-Service Kiosk
4th Level Self-Service Kiosk
2025
Cardboard, Bristol Paper, Clear Plastic, And Acrylic Paint
Images Arranged in Canva
For this piece, we were assigned to create a tool in our world, so I built a model of a self-service kiosk for one of the fourth-level convenience stores. I chose to represent the aspect of movement, which is prevalent in my world, by designing different kiosk components that could move along the wall. The kiosk design and colors are based upon insects, lotus flowers, and bamboo, correlating with my world’s theme of biomimicry.
6th level Tomb-Sweeping Festival Bag
6th level Tomb-Sweeping Festival Bag
2025
Cotton Print, Felt, and Thread.
Images Arranged in Canva
For this piece, we were to create an object used in a ritual. Every year during 清明节 or the Tomb Sweeping Festival, people sacrifice offerings to their ancestors, including flowers, fruits, and paper replicas of items such as money and even cars. Some regions of Asia, including Japan, send the offerings down the river, which carries it into my realm of the dead. Each member of the dead is given a fabric bag to collect the offerings from the river, which they can exchange for digital assets to be uploaded into their bank accounts.
Citations
The shape of the bag is modeled after a traditional Chinese boat, while the moth appliqué is inspired by moth kites flown during the Tomb Sweeping Festival.
9th level Jadeite Mountain
9th level Jadeite Mountain
2025
Wood, acrylic paint, aluminum wire, and plastic beads
Images Arranged in Canva
For this piece, we were to create a natural object found in our world using wood. Since my world is entirely artificial except for the water, air, and rocks, I decided to create one of the jadeite mountains of the ninth level.
Folding Screen Cabinet
Folding Screen Cabinet
2025
Cardboard, Paper, Wooden Dowels, Glue, Watercolor Paint, and acrylic paint
Images Arranged in Canva
Folding Screen.movOur final piece for this class was to create a container that would house all of the objects we made throughout the semester and provide context. Focusing on the aspects of compactness and movement from my world, I built a cabinet box with interlocking compartments.
Each of the ten sides depicts one of the levels of the afterlife, with the sides behind each project depicting their level of origin.
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