Orbital Vanitas - Key Art

A series of key art frames for Australian artist Shaun Gladwell's VR masterpiece 'Orbital Vanitas' that debuted at Sundance New Frontier 2017 in Park City, Utah.

In this virtual reality experience, you are placed inside an enormous human skull that is orbiting above the earth. The atmosphere reflects Gladwell's current mood in both political and philosophical terms — which is very dark indeed. Here, Shaun has placed that skull and all that it symbolizes within the dark void of space.

'Orbital Vanitas' is both a celebration of virtual reality and also a critique. We have been locked into our own heads — our senses arrested by a technology that offers us images without frames. Within this medium, the human skull resembles Plato’s allegory of the cave: We imprison ourselves within flickering illusions and simulations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/opinion/orbital-vanitas.html