The story of Sliced in Time
It was the only known device of its kind. It took them centuries, but they were determined to study it and learned that it could isolate slices of time. It seemed to be able to focus on specific particles in the quantum realm.
As they continued their study, they were amazed at what they saw. The device was constantly shifting and warping time in a way that they had never seen before. They could see moments from the past and future all at once, as if time was a fluid substance that it could manipulate at will.
Even in the last few days before the rapture, when it was already clear that their own perception of time was being distorted, the consensus was that the device simply was some sort of particle analyzer. However, the more they studied the object, the more they realized that its power was unstable. It was causing tiny ripples in time that were slowly spreading throughout their world.
They never really understood what happened to them.
Capturing fragments of time
On display are 32 slices of rotating particles, caught in a finite time fragment. Each slice has an on and off state, which is controlled by the device. The device contains a piece of grid material that disperses energy. This energy feeds the morphing of time and controls the state of the slices.
The rate through which the particles flow through time varies for each sequence. The particles are inherently chaotic, but the device continuously tries to find a transformation for stable analysis.
The choreography consists of sequences that are based on recursive subdivision. This ensures that a rhythm emerges that feels consistent throughout the performance.
The algorithms
This is a 100% code-based artwork, there are no pre-rendered images involved. The visuals are generated by programmatically rotating a mathematical shape in 3D. These 3D visuals are then divided over 32 frames, each frame showing a different point in time of the rotating animation.
The frames themselves are drawn by a custom 2D renderer with built-in bitmap caching, to keep everything smooth and fast. These frames are being transformed by dissecting, rotating and translating them, each operation drive by a smooth random, looping noise function. The order and type of operations are unique for every piece.
Each line in the final artwork is deliberately drawn in a somewhat imperfect fashion, to further enhance the notion of imperfect measurement and the way this device is beyond comprehension.