Time as a Fourth Dimension –
Before I go any further, I really need to present this video with sound. The sound is incredibly important, because it adequately and eloquently sums up the disaster that is currently all of my technological devices! Every computer or device I own is creaking at the seams! The video I created below actually sums up how it feels! No words needed.
Technology Gone Bad
I subtitled this blog ‘Time as a Fourth Dimension’ – I’m not actually going to discuss time as a fourth dimension here, but I do think it sounds great as a subtitle. It’s relevance will become apparent further into this blog. In a previous blog I responded to the work of Vilde Rolfeson. I also had a number of conversations with ChatGPT in the making of the digital pieces presented there. These were inspired by her work. I always felt that her work around the plastic bag landscape offered a myriad of experimental possibilities. Therefore I decided that I would continue with more experimentation based on this.
During my conversations with ‘Ai’ I asked for programs to gently destruct or disrupt an image. After a number of attempts and tweaking of its code, the ‘bot’ eventually came up with programs that produced results that matched my vision. In order to experiment, I fed one of my plastic bag images (see Vilde Rolfeson inspired blog) into the the resulting programs. As a recap I’ve posted one of the resulting videos.
The Pixel Destruction of a Carrier Bag Image
A Gallery of Stills
Below is a gallery of a number of stills captured from the ChatGPT gentle plastic bag destruction videos, including the video above.
Time and Further Experimentation
I had always been fascinated by time, but so far apart from my short time-lapse videos I haven’t really managed to weave this fully into any of my projects apart from my London Trip Part One blogpost. Time is quite an elusive concept. Scientists do not seem to agree on whether it even exists, or whether it is just a man-made construct to help us navigate through our daily lives. In my search for hidden phenomena or things that are not visible to the naked eye, I constantly return to time. As I was slowly watching one of the carrier bag images destruct on screen, I began to think about people who sat or stood in art galleries just staring into the art pieces in front of them. I have often been in a gallery and walked out of a space only to come back 30 minutes later to find the same person still absorbing a piece of work. I then began to wonder how interesting it would be if the piece in front of them moved or changed ever so slightly. Would it enhance their experience or detract from it? Although I do enjoy looking at art pieces, I think that if something did change, then, for me personally it would hold my attention longer. It would pique my interest as to what the final outcome of the changes might actually be.
One of the programs that came from ChatGPT was the slow death of pixels in an image. The observer could clearly see that something was happening but the pace was very gentle. I would very much like to post an example below but as you may recall from the first video on this blog my technology is still very ‘poorly’. For this reason I will try as best as I can to explain my concept but some of my ideas may have to be curtailed, simply because at the moment I do not have access to the processing power I require.
The Slow Pixel Death of a Carrier Bag
The video below is the result of a computer program generated by ChatGPT. The image that is being destructed is of a carrier bag that was shot to resemble a landscape or cave with welcoming glow. My intention would be to have images destruct over a number of hours. I’ve already had one of the carrier bag images run for around 4 hours just gently dissolving into a completely black background. As mentioned above, I have limited processing power so the following video shows two and a half minutes of footage as the image slowly disappears.
Adding Time (Problem Solving)
It might be enough to have some slowly destructing images but I felt that the experiment could be pushed further to incorporate an element of time. I decided that it would be interesting if I could add a real time digital clock to the video footage. However I had absolutely no idea of how to do this! I looked to see if any YouTube tutorials existed that would help. Eventually I thought I had found what I was looking for and I spent roughly an hour and a half trying to work out how to produce a working digital clock. Unfortunately I soon discovered that this had been a complete waste of time because although the clock looked very nice the animation was not in real-time and moved far too fast. It was ideal if you wanted to give the sense of time speeded up but I wanted my digital clock to accurately represent time. Below is a still from the first clock animation plus two slightly different designs that I tried.
Non Real-time Animated Clock Face
Experiments with Colour
Producing a Working Version of Digital Clock (Programming Expressions)
After quite a lot of research I finally found a relatively simple Adobe After Effects Tutorial that explained how to program a working digital clock. There was no way of avoiding a small amount of programming and I needed to add 3 expressions to the rotation of each pointer. These expressions were as follows:
Second Hand – The first expression was to set the speed of rotation for the second hand – this was simply – time*6
Minute Hand – The second expression to set was the minute hand which was – time/10
Hour Hand – The third and final expression was to set the hour hand which was – time/120
Once these expressions had been added to the rotation of the digital pointers I created in After Effects, the animation began to work, and it kept time! Below is the clock face that I designed. This can easily be tweaked by changing the lines and background etc. However, for my purposes I only required a simple clock face because much of the emphasis of the piece was to be on the slowly destructing background.
Adding a Working Digital Clock to a Video
Now that I had managed to produce my working digital clock I wanted to get it out with a number of videos. Unfortunately because my technology at home is under resourced I was only able to produce limited length animations. Below are some of the experiments
Working Clock Video Experiment 1.
The video experiment below was a quick trial using an existing video comprising a set of image revealing animations. I chose this video as I knew it worked and it meant that I didn’t need any programs to run to make it.
Working Clock Video Experiment 2.
In the video experiment below I ran the ChatGPT Processing program to produce a slow destruction of the pixels. As all of my devices were really struggling at this stage, I thought it was best to aim for around two and a half minutes of footage. I decided to add a large working clock to this footage. I also chose the music very carefully. The music was a key element because it had to have a very melancholic sound to accompany the slow death of the landscape. The idea of the pixel destruction of the carrier bag image represents the death of an ephemeral era. The piece is meant to evoke a sadness flowing through time as the plastic bag landscape dissolves.
Working Clock Video Experiment 3.
The video below is simply a variation on the theme. This time I chose to make the clock face much smaller so that it did not detract from the slow pixel destruction. I don’t think that this worked as well, because it did not convey a sense of urgency that time was slowly but surely running out.
Memento Mori – Experiment 4. Final Experiment (For Now)
The video below is my final experiment with time and image for now. I stress the for now, because I would like to do some primary research among colleagues, friends and family as to whether both my idea and it’s execution is achieving my aim. This blogpost is related to two others namely: Vilde Rolfeson – Inspired Work and Conversations with Ai. These posts explain more about this project and the thinking behind it.
My main aim was to use Ai to create the slow and beautiful destruction of an image that is measured against time. The image of a carrier bag was specifically chosen because, plastic pollution is a serious problem. This is particularly true when coupled with the ephemeral, throwaway society in which we currently live. The music was chosen to represent the sad melancholy destruction of that era. In this final rendition of the video I have added a small character who looks down as their world slowly begins to destruct. Indeed as the video moves on the character itself slowly dissolves into the background.
Risk Taking
I had an interesting conversation with one of my colleagues today who felt this project was quite different from anything I had done before. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but either way I do have to agree. I am taking a different approach to my work at the moment but I am hoping that my risks will pay off. In light of all of the new advances in technology I felt that it would be a shame not to explore it further. Above all else I am learning. I am improving my ability to code and I am stretching myself with familiar programs such as Adobe After Effects. I hope that by taking these risks my work will vastly improve and I can marry up more traditional ways of working alongside newer more technologically advanced ones. My plan is to test my work and I’ve already started asking colleagues, friends and family if they find a sense of sadness in the final video edit above. One of my colleagues said that she felt a sense of both loss and bewilderment through observing the piece. I found this encouraging as this was a large part of my aim.
Future Developments
I hope to run a few small questionnaires regarding the ‘final’ video edit above, to see how people feel about the piece. This is to ensure that I’m on the right lines. Should this be the case then I would like to produce a full 12 hour animation. This way the video would become a working timepiece. The user would just need to set the video to the correct time and then the clock should keep time. I would then experiment with different imagery to fill the space in and around the clock. I would experiment with different themes – possibly different clock faces. If possible I would like to stick with the Ai generated code for slowly destructing images. I would also like to examine what type of imagery to destruct and if there was space for photography, more animations and stills to that could be added throughout the twelve hour period. I see the clock as being quite a large installation. I would like to introduce motion sensors so that the piece becomes interactive so that a user could literally warp and disturb time. Hal9000 from the famous book ‘2001 a Space Odyssey’ is in my opinion synonymous with ‘Ai’. Therefore, I would like to incorporate his iconic voice into the piece, along with computer code slowly scrolling up the screen behind or to the side of the clock. All of these developments will depend on upgrading my computer equipment, or obtaining access to better equipment. I also need to be sure that I moving I the right direction.
Evaluation and Conclusion
This piece may not be the most exciting animation in the world but the journey to arrive at this point certainly was. This particular set of projects starting with the Vilde Rolfeson blog and the Conversations with Ai blog were more about the exploration of ‘Ai’ and its capabilities than producing an amazingly detailed and well executed animation. I’m also not an animator. However I feel that I may have the beginnings of an idea. Depending upon feedback I think that there is much more to explore. This could just be the start…
