Koi Temple Series
Koi Temple is an original virtual IP inspired by the Chinese internet ritual of “forwarding koi fish” for good luck. Transforming this familiar cyber symbol into a fictional belief system, the project explores how collective desire, digital superstition, and commercial culture can shape the meaning of an image. At the center of the project is a virtual temple designed to house this contradiction: the koi fish represents an imagined form of luck, yet its symbolic value is continuously reinforced, circulated, and commercialized by the market. Through an experimental film, an augmented reality filter, and an online exhibition, Koi Temple builds a cohesive visual world across multiple digital touchpoints. Audiences are invited to enter the temple, participate in its rituals, and experience the deliberately hypnotic language of the koi-fish belief system. Welcome to the virtual Koi Temple.
Deliverables
1. IP Concept 2. Experimental Film 3. AR Filter 4. Interactive Website
Entering the Virtual Temple
The interactive website serves as the central space of the Koi Temple universe. It transforms the browsing experience into a digital pilgrimage, guiding visitors through a fictional environment shaped by koi imagery, ritual symbols, and repetitive messages of luck.
The augmented reality experience extends Koi Temple beyond the screen, allowing its fictional symbols and rituals to appear within the audience’s everyday surroundings.
Rather than functioning only as an exhibition platform, the website establishes the project’s worldview and visual language. Through nonlinear navigation and immersive audiovisual elements, audiences gradually encounter the rules, atmosphere, and belief system of the virtual temple.
Turning Participation into Circulation
The Instagram filter translates the visual language of Koi Temple into a lightweight and shareable social experience. By applying koi symbols, blessings, and ritual elements directly to the user, the audience becomes part of the IP’s fictional belief system.
The filter also recreates the original circulation mechanism behind internet koi culture: people receive symbolic luck by engaging with the image and continue the ritual by sharing it with others.
In this way, the audience shifts from visitor to believer, and finally to distributor.
