WIRED.

2025.

This work started out so different from where it would end up.

I wanted to experiment with textures and clipping, so I thought what better way to do that than to make something simultaneously glitchy and haunting.

The Serial Experiments Lain connection comes naturally to this type of thing.

Originally Lain was going to be sitting in the midst of digital chaos in a way that was sort of cute and playful. A reminder that at core she’s still a kid, though as various filters and textures had unnatural effects on the lighting of Lain I eventually became more interested in depicting her like a sentient  security breach. Her invasive presence to someone who doesn’t know what she is could be seen as something ghostly and malevolent. 

That being said, she’s not inherently that so I retained the playful nature of her by way of the pop ups.

The taunting messages on the pop ups, her finger prints over what boxes are the result of her.

The choice in making her an almost pure black silhouette was inspired by the look of some of the ghosts in the Ju-On series.

The U.I was very fun to create and then destroy.