03 Nov 2025
Two postgraduate students from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s Department of Industrial Design have achieved international recognition for their speculative design work “Project Serum: Dominance on Trial” by bridging?the boundaries between speculative design, artificial intelligence, and ecological ethics. It?not only received an Honorable Mention in an international design competition, but also led to a paper that was accepted at an international conference.
“Project Serum: Dominance on Trial”
The?speculative narrative created by Yiran Ma and Xianyue Zhu?discusses the consequences of anthropocentrism through a narrative design presented in various formats.?Set in a speculative world where continental drift and environmental collapse force humanity to confront its hubris, the story unfolds through the lens of a deep-sea court.
Oppressed marine life and robots rise against human arrogance, sparking an identity-redefining war that reshapes alliances.?Blending science fiction with ethical inquiry, the narrative challenges viewers to reconsider humanity’s role within fragile ecosystems, advocating for a reimagined future of interspecies coexistence.
The project?was originally developed as coursework for the IND406 module “Body, Space, and Machine” under the supervision of module leader Dr Aven Le Zhou, Assistant Professor of the Department. The module was also supported by Dr Mengjie Huang as a tutor and our IND PhD student Jiahe Li as a teaching assistant.
“In this module, we learned?about the design processes to build interactive demonstrators for both physical and digital contexts, using advanced tools and methods to exhibit and communicate their final learning outcomes.?It has been instrumental in shaping the theoretical framework and creative direction of my work,” says Yiran.
Chelsea-Xi Chen, Yiran Ma, Xianyue Zhu, Dr Aven Le Zhou (from left to right)
In the?recently concluded?2nd?Digital Arts Student Competition?2025 - Speculative Futures, “Project Serum” received an Honorable Mention Award.?The competition was jointly organised by ACM SIGGRAPH and ISEA International?- two leading international platforms in digital arts and interactive media.?This summer, Yiran and Xianyue were invited to present their work at the ISEA 2025 Conference held in Seoul, South Korea.
Dr Zhou says: “The recognition underscores the project’s originality in exploring AI-assisted speculative design and multispecies worldbuilding.”
Yiran Ma and Xianyue Zhu?at ISEA 2025
Building on the coursework, the two students continued their collaboration with Dr Zhou and PhD student Xi Chen over the summer, resulting in a co-authored paper accepted as a full publication at the ACM VINCI 2025 conference in Austria.
The paper introduces an AI-assisted speculative narrative design workflow that explores ecological ethics and challenges anthropocentrism through “Project Serum”.?Integrating AI image generation and human editing?and presented through a combination of video, postcards, and comic posters, it offers a reusable framework for multimodal storytelling promoting ecological justice.
The AI-Assisted Speculative Narrative Design Workflow
Dr Zhou says: “Their works represents an excellent example of research-led teaching and practice-based research. It shows how our coursework and student design projects can evolve into internationally recognised scholarly outcomes through structured guidance and mentorship.
“It highlights?the strength of our?industrial design programme’s integration of creative practice and?scholarly inquiry with both design competition award and?research publication.”
Exhibition of the project on campus
By Yi Qian
Images courtesy of Department of Industrial Design
03 Nov 2025