Man In Screen

This is an illustration created with Adobe Illustrator. The concept is inspired by the movie "Inception", or the "Brain in a vat" hypothesis, which inspired the movie.

I used a simplified paper-cutting style with bright, mild colors to evoke a sense of relaxation and normality to the viewers. To let them relate the concept with their peaceful daily life, and raise the concern of them being a programmed consciousness. The keyboard in the image only has "ctrl" and "z" because it refers to the process of “undoing” whatever that caused confusion, and stepping “back” from the false reality, layer by layer.

Concept sketch based on my desktop back home, back then I hadn't thought about the papercut art style.

I did a more detailed sketch, but I found that too many details turned out be distracting. They made this image less relatable for audiences in my peer review. When they talked about their understanding, they all referred to the figure as "Me the author" — a particular person — in stead of "people in general". They didn't identify themselves as the character. Eventually, I left the image abstract, simplified to basic figures, to emphasize the idea of "person looking at a screen".