A Short History of Nearly Everything

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" is "an audiovisual artwork about the connections between the [Thames] and technological advancements," writes artist Antonio Roberts of his project, which was commissioned by Elsa James for the 2021 edition of Estuary Festival. This project foregrounds an enduring concern in Roberts's art-making practice which means, as he explains it, being "aware of the methods being used to produce it, the sustainability of technology-based practices and the potential impact this may have on the environment."

As a result, "Roberts makes a conscious choice to only use technology or methods which don’t rely on render farms or outsourcing the work to other companies or people. These include using the livecoding software TidalCycles for the soundtrack, and a combination of Pure Data/GEM, Inkscape and custom scripts for the visuals." -- From the Artist's Statement, New River Journal