Interferography

'Interferography'' is an interactive digital artwork exploring an imaginary visual language. The 'language' is created from microscopic imagery of virus fragments rendered in 3D; three layers of image for each digital colour channel of red, green and blue. The project combines real-time 8K 3D digital imaging and face-tracking, calculating the physical location and orientation of a viewer's face as it appears in the camera as they observe the work. This information is used to determine the angle of view (parallax), the application of a dolly effect to the three RGB layers of each element (diffraction), and the level of zoom in the imagery. Thus the movement of the viewer results in the appearance of iridescent moire effects in each visual element, evoking how interacting data patterns (as diffracting interferograms) might present as linguistic signs with dense semiotic potential. Such imagery is routinely used to encode data (eg: interferograms embedded in credit cards, passports, and some currencies). Here the proposition is that such encoding techniques might become a human-readable language (although, obviously, in 'Interferography' the 'text' remains illegible).

'Interferography' is a development of earlier interactive artworks exploring imaginary languages; 'Autography' (2020), 'Corpography' (2023) and 'Neurography' (2024); and a series of artworks, including 'Data Double' (2022), 'Correlates' (2023) and 'Diffusion' (2025), that explore the visual diffraction of viewers as irridescent (data) subjects.

Technical specification: Macbook Pro M3 Max, OSX 14.4.1, Processing 4.3, Samsung QN800D 8K display, Canon EOS R50 camera with 18-45mm lens. Note that the screen recording is rendered at 4K due to the technical limitations of current screen recording software. There is four times as much information visible in the live artwork (see still image at bottom of page for full resolution version).

Screen recording of 'Interferography' being interacted with.

Still images from the screen recording of 'Interferography'.

Still image at 8K original resolution of 'Interferography'. Right-Click on the image to open in a new tab; then select the new tab and click on the image (mouse-pointer should appear as a magnifying glass) to enlarge it to its original resolution.