Originally published as an Advisory Hour Substack post on 2026-09-15. This first-party site copy preserves the text, localizes public supporting media, and connects the record to its project trail.
Original post
Every now and again I have a chance to experience the future and this is a project that samples from that futuristic “around the corner” phenomena. This Mara project uses a revised formulation of John’s World to produce a nearly consistent set of characters and a world where things are happening. Even though imperfect, you can see the bones of something emerging. To be clear: the video has its share of flaws and I’m not here to say this is going to win at Sundance. What it is though, is fun.
While there’s so much I’d love to go fix, there’s a point in all of these projects where done has to simply mean “good enough”. The state of AI is advancing faster than my own builds can keep up. In the course of doing this project, OpenAI released a new image model, Astra was released, and lord even knows what else happened.
It wasn’t that long ago I could barely get a coherent image generated at home. Now I’ve achieved my first 5 minute video production. Owing to the rapid AI advances in all corners of the internet, it’s safe to say it’ll be possible for me (or you!) to do much longer video projects in the very near future.
These are stills from the project.
The world is based on the stories around Fossil Interface. It’s a world where massive fossilized environments crosses with holographic interfaces of a kind of sci-fi meets the distant past. The art I included on this article certainly highlight the adventure and nature of that world.
It’ll be fun to return to this project or a sequel down the road. No doubt about the amount of improvements that need done. There are a vast sea of fixes that I need to get into place before I attempt something like this again. And who knows, maybe a coherent 10 minute episode isn’t completely out of the cards. The specific blocks I need to resolve aren’t impossible to overcome, they’re just time intensive and annoying.
The thought bubble I’d leave you with is about the future of video generation. Having the ability to generate video changes the entire calculous of what it means to explore not just AI, but the infinite multi-verse. With a few thoughts a simple harness can pull together a five-minute episode. The math quickly tips into abundance with any sense of computing scale.
There’s an infinite landscape awaiting your exploration.
Connected work
- Fossil Interface Video Explorations: Return to the motion studies that opened this part of the project.
- GameLab: Fossil Interface: Start with the playable build and its character and level labs.
- Mara Voss in VideoLab: Watch the later Mara Voss film and its supporting motion studies.