Try to identify: Who created it? For whom? With what materials and metaphors? With what intention? What impact? On whom? How? Did the artist identify a public or create a counterpublic?
Project: https://www.zeelab.xyz/Ancient-Family-Tree-Am-I-a-Descendant-of-a-Royal-Family
The project was created by artist Fan Xiang and engineer Shunshan Zhu. They began this project with the question: “Am I a descendant of an ancient royal family?” For those who are also curious about their ancestor. Then they collected the data to build a family tree. There are two versions, a 3D-printed tree and the tree on the screen. And the metaphor is the tree, obviously. The intention is to raise curious about people’s family origins. That gives a strong sense of connection to family and history. Because the user can search their family names to see the branch. The public is who has a Chinese family name. And the counterpublic is who not has.
There’s another angle to see the tree according to an author’s speech. The traditional family tree recorded only men. But how can we born without women? So there is another intention: Review the history and social we documented. We should remember women. From this angle, a public is men, or who have the right to record the history. And the counterpublic is women, or who has no right to record the history.