Virtual Cage — the path to escape

Virtual Cage is a dystopian art short film I created for a high-school English assignment. The prompt was open-ended: write something anti-utopian, any format. Rather than taking the obvious route — a standard essay — I chose to tell that story through an original AI novel, a video, and a song.

The project spans multiple disciplines: I wrote an original English short novel titled Escape from AI, composed and arranged the soundtrack, built 3D city models on computer for background scenes, filmed footage in my neighbourhood's basement, created a humanoid sculpture from discarded circuit boards and crystals in AP 3D Art class, and narrated the entire film myself — reading lines from my own novel.

What began as an expression of fear became the first chapter of a longer journey: from seeing AI as a dangerous unknown beast, to understanding it as a tool made of data, algorithms, and models — and eventually, to working with it across psychology, education, gaming, and software development.

In my first year of high school, AI felt like a dangerous and unknown beast. The speed of its development was staggering — every week brought new capabilities that seemed to outpace our ability to understand or regulate them. I worried about jobs disappearing, about humans being swept along by forces they couldn't control, about a future where thinking itself might become optional.

I couldn't express that fear in code yet — I didn't know how. But I could express it in art. The English assignment became my outlet: a dystopian story about a world where AI has quietly taken over, and one person's attempt to escape.

The visual world of Virtual Cage was built from multiple media layers. I created 3D city models on computer to serve as dystopian backdrops — towering skylines seen from above, rendered with deliberate glitch effects and text overlays like "Escape the glitch that traps the soul."

In AP 3D Art class, I constructed a humanoid sculpture from废旧电路板 (discarded circuit boards), crystals, and wires. The piece literalised my worry: as humans grow more dependent on AI, are we losing the vitality of independent thought? The sculpture became a central image in the film, its fragmented body suggesting a humanity being gradually rewired.

I also shot footage in my neighbourhood's basement — raw, real spaces that grounded the digital dystopia in something tangible and local. The contrast between the sleek 3D cities and the gritty basement corridors creates the film's visual tension.

Virtual Cage was where my understanding of AI really began. Fear alone couldn't keep my curiosity alive — I needed to get closer to AI, to see what it actually was rather than what it seemed to be. These experiences gradually gave me a new understanding of AI.

Full reflection on AI evolution and my goals: about.html#ai-interest