Agharta

It may appear as an indecipherable map to some. To others, it may present itself as a cross section of an underground cave. Or maybe an uncanny landscape of volcanic activity, a diagram of geological strata, or even something else entirely. Some vague structure may also appear; is it the remains of an ancient civilization? Or perhaps a glimpse into our own tomorrow?

In "Agharta", I sought to create a generative work that could invite the viewer to explore the depths of their imagination and uncover hidden structures within the seemingly chaotic composition. The idea came to me when I was exploring Simplex noise and pixel displacement in Cables. I was surprised by the emergent structures that appeared when some set of parameters paired with the right texture.

The title of the piece references the mythical underground world said to be located at the earth's core. This idea of hidden depths and secret worlds within the earth resonates with the abstract and enigmatic nature of the result generated by the noise. Imagery of landscape, vague structures, or geological features may appear but never stand out on its own; it exists in a state of constant flow and intersection as if viewed from another dimension. And just like the myth itself that bring up numerous theories that doesn’t necessarily connected to each other, it hints at that idea of an elusive imagined realm while never actually represent it completely.

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Controls:

[1] Set resolution to 716 x 1024px (default)

[2] Set resolution to 1433 x 2048px

[3] Set resolution to 2688 x 3840px

• The presets above are suitable for screen viewing up to 4k screen resolution. To set a custom resolution for printing and other purpose, add &res=[desired resolution] at the end of the URL. It will set the height of the image, and the width will be calculated automatically at 0.7 ratio. For example to get a resolution of 4911 x 7016px (about the size of A2 paper), add &res=7016 as URL parameter.

[Scroll/pinch] to zoom and drag to pan

[r] or [zoom out to max] Reset position

[c] Capture a screenshot of the current state at rendered resolution

Notes:

• This project use shaders that relies on GPU. Hi-res output may slow down your device. Since it also utilize GPU instance for thumbnail rendering, expect longer time for every iterations to be signed by fx(hash).

• If 'glitching' occurs or the composition behaves differently at different resolution, just refresh the page to reset it (except for the thin lines, which are always drawn at approximately 1 pixel, so expect it to vary at different resolution).

Made with cables.gl, a node-based webgl environment

XALTED 2022