Carina Nebula Dreamscape
On April 24, 2007, in celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers released one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras, a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth--and death--is taking place.
Over 9 years later in late 2016, with access to a proprietary version of Google’s “Deep Dream” artificial intelligence software modified expressly for my artistic purposes by two brilliant software engineers, Joseph Smarr (Google) and Chris Lamb (NVIDIA), I saw the opportunity to transform this spectacular image into a metaphor for human imagination and ingenuity.
My "Carina Nebula Dreamscape" is the final installment in my art series, Dreamscapes 2: From Inner Space to Outer Space, which explores the creative application of artificial intelligence to ultra-high-resolution imagery ranging from microscopic to cosmic scale. In this particular piece, I intentionally chose a “dreaming” style deep in the A.I.’s neural network that would result in animalistic hallucinations only perceptible upon close inspection. In my view, the infusion of a myriad of AI-generated creatures into this Hubble image is quite fitting given that mankind has been imagining creatures in the stars for millennia.
When one considers the science and technology that had to first be developed before this image could be created (optics, rocketry, astronomy, semiconductors, computer science, computer graphics, AI, deep learning), it boggles the mind. It is my hope and expectation that when viewers engage with this image, they are not only inspired by the sheer vastness and beauty of our universe, but they also sense the infinite potential of man-machine collaborations in both science and art.
Read MoreCarina Nebula, Carina the Keel Constellation, Milky Way Galaxy
Underlying imagery courtesy of the Hubble Heritage Project; 29566 x 14321 px
Credit for Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Credit for CTIO Image: N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley) and NOAO/AURA/NSF
(Click here to interactively explore entire scene.)