A Short Ride Through Hyperspace (2023)
A Short Ride Through Hyperspace is a 61 minute looping video at 3xHD.
It is part of the series Diffeomorphism, emerging from a customised StyleGAN3 model which I modified the model to make creative use of its unusual capability to allow the waveforms underlying each image to be transformed. Using this, I’ve expanded the viewport beyond its trained regions, creating huge images which gradually degenerate into fractal-like artefacts towards the edges.
The work takes the form of an endless zoom-in, although quite distinct from the familiar effect on diffusion models. Here, we visit just 16 ‘places’ – distinct points within the model’s latent space. No new information is introduced as we zoom in, but instead artefacts and inconsistencies emerge as we map from the outer to the inner. I added further visual effects by injecting undulating noise into various points of the model.
Both visuals and sound rely exclusively on my own data. The visual model is trained on my entire lifetime archive of photos. The soundtrack I composed in the traditional way, drawing on audio recordings I’ve made over the years, including samples of childhood compositions.
Overall, it is in one sense a journey of memory, and its inevitable inaccuracy. But it is also an exploration into the nature of perception itself, with the title referencing a sense of drifting between the lifelike and abstract waveforms, reminiscent of the multidimensional universe postulated by string theory.
The process I developed for this work also has the unusual quality of leading to very high resolution images. It is presented as intended: on a very wide screen, with good sound and soft seating, as an installation where visitors can wander in and out on their own timescale.
This work was originally commissioned by Threshold Studios for Frequency Festival 2023.
A Short Ride Through Hyperspace – project page
Tim Murray Browne – artist homepage and @timmurraybrowne on Instagram.
