Ancient Courses is a generative experience that explores the aesthetics of meandering rivers and the settlements that form on their banks. The design is graphic and cartographic with bold color palettes rendered against map iconography and line sensibility. From the river banks, roads stretch across the landscape: sometimes a single access road, other times sprawling towns. The river meandering is simulated via a custom algorithm which closely models the real world process.

Press 'r' to reset the simulation.
Press 's' to save an image to disk.
Press 'h' to re-run the simulation at print res. This is significantly slower than the default screen res version. The progress bar at the bottom of the screen shows how long before the print-res image is automatically saved to disk.

A limited number of Ancient Courses mints will come with a Treasure Map feature. The owner can request a physical print (max one print per treasure map).

Best viewed on Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.

Ancient Courses of Fictional Rivers

“Fragments of an infinite field” is a compositional system in which an idealized plant species is generated and arranged in a potentially infinite field of foliage. The main environmental parameter of the composition is the determination of a season of the year. The season determines the landscape’s colors and defines specific phenomena for each of them, such as rain in summer, snow in winter, petals falling in autumn, and pollen in spring. The flower has several possible variables, which can be macro aspects, affecting the entire population of the species, or micro, affecting each individual of the species differently. For example, the number of petals can be equal in all individuals or not. The number of filaments and other structures of the flower can undergo minor deviations, generating small mutations. The confusion between the figure (plant) and the background (earth, sky, other natural elements) is fascinating from a compositional point of view. The background colors are, most of the time, colors present in the figures, often breaking the boundary between them and, therefore, generating chromatic masses. In this project I also intend to research the following question: How to create parameters that resemble a living organism's growth? In this sense, the project approaches digital morphogenesis and the development of procedural organisms.

Fragments of an Infinite Field

Pigments is an exploration of colour and spatial distortion. Each instance is an abstract representation aimed at evoking a micro or macro-environment; from unknown substances, or oil in a canvas, to nebular formations. The pieces are animated, meant to be experienced live. The piece can run endlessly, with infinite output. To run it smoothly you need a capable GPU. If this proves to be too computationally intensive, or if you prefer a static view, feel free to press the spacebar.

Pigments

"Edifice" is a series of 976 massive, deteriorating structures built on strange terrain. It is an exploration of buildings being conceptualized, constructed, and eroded away under a wide variety of conditions. Edifice's outputs run the gamut between minimal and maximal, with some showing few large, static blocks of color, and others many small, highly textured and warped shapes. Each image is progressively constructed in front of the viewer's eyes. It is a system full of surprises that I'm excited to share with the world.

Edifice

Memories define us. Made of countless fragments, they are an ever-changing snapshot of our past. Frammenti is a digital explosion of life, inspired by our most personal treasures.

Frammenti #154
Stefano Contiero

features

Frammenti #154.css-1wclmit{display:none;}@media (min-width: 768px){.css-1wclmit{display:inline;}} • .css-ymsk1t{white-space:nowrap;font-weight:400;}Stefano Contiero

features

Frammenti #154
Stefano Contiero