:: Slow Down Time - Video Experiment #03 ::

A study in retro-futurist re-animation using the text-to-image service Midjourney in collaboration with artist producer Lev Manovich. The composition evolves across a thread of twenty-five images created with the text-to-image synthesis service Midjourney for the art intervention, Slow Down Time.

Procedural Notes

By blending the images into video (using RunwayML’s frame interpolation), we can examine a larger narrative within this 'illustrated' fantasy world. Descending into the labyrinthine chambers - as envisioned by an algorithm in 2023, pretending to be in 17770 imagining the world in 1970 - we might ask, "What are they building in there? Why are they collecting everything? Where are those long lines of people going?"

The prompt Lev originally posed was: "17th century etching, 1770s vision of 1970s modern research institute, white paper, lots of details, in the style of Breugel, cross-hatching,"

However, this did not produce somewhat muddled and inconsistent results. So the prompt parameters were modified slightly to: "17th century etching of a Georgian vision of a late 20th Century modern research institute. In the style of Breugel, on white archival paper, highly detailed, cross-hatching, rare."

Reference Links

Project Site :: Slow Down Time
Lev Manovich :: http://manovich.net/
Lev Manovich, Futurism 1770 series :: https://slowdowntime4.wordpress.com/lev-manovich/