GOD IS CODE Loop

The latest loop I have created was the Nietzsche-inspired God is Code short.

Nietzche coined the controversial phrase in his 'Parable of a Madman' poem/writing. He was writing about the decline of modern society and the birth of the postmodern age. here is the extract.

'Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.'

Nietzche isn't just referring to a divinity. He is saying that all the grand narratives of society were crumbling, eroding and changing. Society was becoming secular, losing faith and ignoring the 'gods.' Science can't give us all the answers, religion and politics definitely cannot, so to Nietzsche. God Is Dead.

But now, I challenge that God isn't dead, God is present but in a different form. In today's society there is an omnipotent being. something that creates and kills, something that controls us; from our bank accounts to our global security. God isn't dead, now God is Code.

The loop is very simple in construction - here is a basic storyboard that I started out by creating.

My initial plan was to have some very large, bold lettering on a plain background. I would then distort these and make it look like a corrupt file, citing reference from glitch artists such as Curt Clonginger and Rosa Menkman . This distortion would them be replaced by the secondary phrase 'God Is Code' 

The basic idea of the loop was to reference the way technology is being used to replace much of modern day society, not only is Nietzsche replacing God as deceased, now technology is replacing Nietzsche's notion. As now, In Code We Trust.

To create the glitch effect I duplicated the text layer in photoshop twice. I then colour overlaid the layers into a green and pink layer, I used the eyedropper tool to use the same colours as similar glitch art examples and then aligned them to be slightly differently on the horizontal plane. I did the same for the Code layer. 

Next I removed and offset random selections of the text to create a fragmented effect, I then saved these to different layers so that I could individually animate them in After Effects. In After Effects I took the layers and animated them to a dispersed position in relatively few frames so that there was a quick glitch sequence, I added stutter to create a lagging effect and then brought the fragments back to the main image again. I repeated the sequence a few times and applied a similar sequence to the Code image. This then completed my loop.