The imagery of the Sky Gods of Tavarong video began with hand-built, abstract, 2”x 2” glass slides.  First, transparent inks, dyes, and liquid materials of high viscosity were applied via flow processes to individual plates. Next, they were sandwiched together and manipulated by hand until the drying process was relatively complete.  Then, thirty-one slides were selected, photographed using a high-resolution digital (still) camera, and imported into video production software for further processing.

The structural frame of reference for the work was algorithmic congruence by inversion, whereby polar identity was established between processes independently applied to the audio and video material.   Although the piece was conceived as a whole, individual computer algorithms that are conceptually related, but dissimilar with respect to outcome, determined the placement of details within each medium. 

 The video compositional algorithm produced a texture consisting of multiple layers of still images. Subsequently, each layer was processed via standard video effects and transitions.  The resultant video renderings were then “granularized” by application of an algorithm that selected minute clips from the video layers and redistributed them according to a probability distribution that produced a sense of textural dimensionality/directionality over the course of the video. 

 The music compositional algorithm was similar in concept, yet diametrically opposed in scale.  Instead of granularizing a long chunk of material into repositioned, transformed, overlapping shards, a short melodic cell was taken from a passage performed on a Chinese instrument; the sample was modified throughout the piece by time/pitch shifting transforms to generate the resulting monolithic tapestry.  (The computer algorithm was devised to produce a nearly uniform textural montage from the pitch- and time-shifted audio samples.)

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