Star dust
generative installation
In the beginning it was nothing.
The Big Bang generated the hydrogen and helium that form stars.
The essential elements for the formation of life are produced inside stars, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, etc. At their sunset, stars explode in supernovae, releasing these elements into space. The atoms present in our bodies, as well as in all living beings, were created in stars billions of years ago.
It is on the basis of these scientific discoveries of the second half of the 20th century that astronomer Carl Sagan popularized the famous phrase “we are made of star stuff”, “we are made of interstellar material”, or even “we are star dust”.
“Star dust” is a real-time generative work of art, which, with noise as its matrix, explores cosmological rhythms and scales. In generative computing, the different types of noise (Gaussian, perlin, ) work as a source of pseudo-random and non-deterministic data that allow the controlled variability of behaviors to generate unpredictable and organic elements. We're talking about sequences of numbers used to control all sorts of parameters, such as movement, color, intensity or time. In this case, solar flares, tides, typhoons, cells, corals, valleys, are created and recreated at frame speed, through digital particles and matrix pixels in loops of 8 minutes, the average time that a ray of sunlight takes to reach the land.
After all, as Sagan also pointed out, we are stardust powered by solar energy, and if the universe is us, we are nature.
Imagining existence and giving form to what we don't know is what makes us human.
Fernando Velazquez
day of the vernal equinox 2023.
