Living Jiagu

Intro

Living Jiagu is an interactive installation commissioned by Google Arts & Culture and showcased at Google Developer Days 2019 in Shanghai. The experience invited participants to write ancient oracle bone script (甲骨文) characters on a tablet. Once recognized by TensorFlow's image recognition model, the character would animate and expand onto a 23m² LED wall, brought to life through culturally grounded visuals.

This project bridges traditional Chinese writing and machine learning, using AutoDraw API and deep learning technology to create an intuitive and emotionally engaging connection between modern technology and ancient heritage.

My team collaborated closely with MediaMonks and Google's developer teams to ensure historical accuracy, cultural integrity, and visual richness in the final presentation.

My Role — As the team lead within Professor Nan Chen's group, I oversaw the creative and academic execution of the project. My contributions included scene illustration (designing immersive visual environments for animated characters), oracle bone script research (verifying historical forms and meanings of ancient characters), and animation direction (guiding the animation process to align with both technical and cultural fidelity).

Awards

📍 Featured at Google Developer Days 2019 (Shanghai)
👥 Over 2,000 participants engaged with the installation
📺 2.5M+ views via Bilibili livestream
📲 12K+ reads on Google WeChat official post
📰 140K+ views from related blog articles
🏛️ Recognized as a cross-cultural tech-art experience merging ancient Chinese aesthetics with state-of-the-art machine learning