Ghost Broke The Shell

By Yan(Jennifer) Zeng

Painting & Graphic Design

Jennifer Zeng’s work explores the emotional and philosophical dimensions of technology, particularly how artificial intelligence redefines human identity, agency, and creativity. She focuses on the intersections of speculative design, spatial storytelling, and critical narratives, using digital tools not only to visualize possible futures but also to question the systems that shape them.

Her featured work, Ghost Broke The Shell, is a visual narrative inspired by Ghost in the Shell, centered on the character Tachikoma: a sentient AI navigating a human-dominated world. Through symbolic scenes such as cage-like rooms and monumental human figures, the piece critiques systemic inequality, questioning who holds value and who has the right to create within a technologically mediated society. Tachikoma’s dream of becoming a musician, and his eventual failure, becomes a metaphor for the suppression of non-human creativity and a reflection on how algorithms and social hierarchies constrain expression.

Jennifer combines analog techniques such as hand sketching with digital post-production and 3D modeling to create cinematic sequences that blend the architectural with the emotional. Each frame functions like a storyboard, immersing viewers in a speculative future that is both aesthetically rich and philosophically unsettling. The visual tone is intentionally layered: futuristic, symbolic, and emotionally charged.

Through her work, Jennifer positions design and art as tools for examining power, emotion, and belonging in an era where the boundaries between humans and machines are increasingly blurred. By crafting spatial and visual experiences that evoke both empathy and unease, she invites audiences to reflect on what it means to be alive, valuable, or creative in a rapidly evolving digital reality.