My initial idea was to create a sort of creative imagining of the idea that reality is an illusion, one of the core principles behind the movie franchise the Matrix. The first Matrix movie's core tenets are that reality is an illusion and that one will only become truly enlightened until they realize this fact, and are able to see through the illusion. I wanted to create a realistic yet virtual representation of this, but was not quite able to achieve what I wanted. Ultimately, I was able to learn a bit about face tracking and the WEBGL 3D object animation library in p5.js. There were a lot of things I wish I could have added, such as numbers streaming down in the background, as well as some related text on the face, but I could not get 2D text to work in a 3D space. I later found out that 3D text was required to make it happen. This also applied to some 2D planes and shapes that I wish I could have added, but did not have enough time to completely figure it out. I still wanted to add something cool to the background, so I referenced one of Dan Shiffman's videos on "Warp Speed Stars". I decided to use lower opacity and strokes on some of the 3D shapes to add to the virtual effect. I also added some interaction by checking if the eyebrows were raised or if the mouth was open, to affect the virtual figure. Finally, I added some sound in the background so that there would be some auditory stimulus on top of the visual artwork.
https://editor.p5js.org/svsalem/sketches/q3nmtCjqv
