Truthseekers

Project Title

Work by Chufeng Wu (MSAUD ’25) + Yizheng Sun (MSAUD ’25) for “Atlas of Images and Image-Making Technologies,” a Research Studio taught by Natasha Sandmeier and Liam Denhamer. The studio explores how designed environments shape narrative—crafting coherent, lived-in worlds where atmosphere, objects, light, time, and material cues guide audience understanding.

Project Statement:

This project presents a speculative world built upon layered realities and nested spaces. At its core lies the garage—not just as a physical structure, but as a symbolic site of invention, observation, and self-contained cosmology. In this world, truth is not handed down, but constructed through individual inquiry—be it through seismic simulations or experiments in light. The story follows two characters—both seekers of truth—who approach the nature of their world from distinct directions: one studies the frequency patterns left by earthquakes, believing in an underlying structural rhythm to chaos; the other maps the behavior of light, convinced that illumination drives the world’s movement and change. Their spaces, their methods, and their devices all reflect personal cosmologies, embedded in a broader world that is itself a model within a model—perhaps even an experiment in another dimension. The film unfolds through nested storytelling, shifting perspectives across physical and conceptual layers—from model cities inside garage simulators to cities that are themselves embedded in larger worlds. This recursive structure allows the audience to experience the instability of perception and scale, and to question what is model and what is real.

The film was created using Unreal Engine for real-time rendering, physics simulation, and cinematic lighting. Architectural elements and devices were modeled in Rhino and imported into Unreal. Characters were developed using MetaHuman, with facial materials refined in New Identity to enhance realism. Costume design was handled in MetaTailor, and camera work was constructed using cinematic rigs to support a layered, immersive visual language.

Atlas of Images and Image-Making Technologies

MSAUD ’25 Research Studio instructed by Natasha Sandmeier and Liam Denhamer

Worldbuilding is the subtle, intricate act of designing the environment in which a story lives. It is a craft that defines the space where narratives unfold, the backdrop against which characters breathe, struggle, and exist. A successful world build creates coherence—a bond between the space and the story—so that the environment feels lived-in, integral, and essential to the narrative it holds. When the world doesn’t fit the story, the fabric unravels, and the immersive power dissolves. Every single element within that world becomes a cue, a guide to the audience's understanding of the narrative: the atmosphere, the objects, the colors, the quality of light, the passage of time, the sounds, the texture of materials, and even the way a breeze drifts in from a window.