This week, I did some thinking about the final project. My inspiration came from a song by Qingfeng Wu called “The Death of Narcissus”
Narcissus was a young man in ancient Greek mythology. He was very beautiful, and many people loved him, but he only loved himself. One day, he saw his reflection in a clear pool of water. He thought the image was another person and fell deeply in love with it. He tried to touch and kiss the reflection, but the image disappeared whenever he moved the water. Narcissus stayed by the pool, looking at his reflection day and night, until he finally died there. After his death, a white flower grew in the same place. People called it “Narcissus,” to remember the young man who loved his own image too much.
Today, many people love their filtered selfies and edited faces. We enjoy showing the perfect version of ourselves online.These pictures are often beautiful, but not always real. Even if we know they are not true, we still like them and want to be like that image. This has become a normal part of our lives and even a social trend. However, just like the story of Narcissus, loving our own image too much can be dangerous. When we keep searching for the “perfect self,” we may forget who we really are. Is the person you show to the world really you?
Through this project, I want to explore how people find and lose themselves in a world full of filters and illusions. It is not only a story about beauty, but also about how we slowly lose our true selves while chasing perfection. My work reflects the modern life where reality and virtual images mix together, and I hope the audience can feel both the attraction and the emptiness behind it.
Based on this idea, I want to make a stylized experimental short film in Unreal Engine to explore this topic.Instead of showing a realistic world, I plan to use light, color, and reflection as the main visual language.The stylized design will help me express emotions and inner thoughts more clearly.
Through this visual experiment, I hope to create a poetic atmosphere that makes people think about identity and illusion in the digital age.