Circadian Nocturne 4+

This app holds a nightly, single-screen performance of Anna Ridler’s Circadian Nocturne, accompanying the Times Square presentation of the same. This single screen version of the project features an original musical score by composer William Marsey, and accompanies the Times Square presentation of Circadian Nocturne, allowing for a more intimate experience of the work from anywhere in the world.

Using complex algorithms to explore non-human ways of keeping time, Ridler’s Circadian Nocturne features AI-generated animations of night-blooming and night scented flora - queen of the night cactuses, the moonflower, night-blooming jasmine, night phlox, and evening stock. Painterly petals slowly blossom into a dreamlike garden — chronobiological clocks set against the mechanical and digital structures that set the pace of our contemporary lives.

Created with artificial intelligence and a high-tech machine that can keep time at an atomic level, Circadian Nocturne also pairs modern, highly precise computerized timekeeping methods with the often unpredictable and imprecise imagery created by autonomous digital software and is part of an ongoing project exploring time and technology. Welcoming this tension, Ridler visually obscures tech-based accuracy with something more organic and in sync with the natural landscape.

Anna Ridler is an artist and researcher who works with systems of knowledge and how technologies are created in order to better understand the world. She is particularly interested in ideas around the natural world. Her process often involves working with collections of information or data, particularly datasets, to create new and unusual narratives.

William Marsey is a composer. His works often features live and sampled music interweaved with recordings of voices and natural sounds, and ranges from personal to collaborative pieces, from concert hall music to digital sound art, music for video installations, theatre, and short movies.