Last night I dreamed of Murano and of paperweights... 

"Murano Fantasy" is an tribute to glassmakers who, since Antiquity, have been producing murrines.
Murrines are assembled into paperweights, with different layouts.
The central cane, when present, is often sophisticated, and the paperweight might be signed by the artist.

As with real murrines, a part of the pleasure is to use a magnifying glass: press 'n' (next) or space to automatically focus on noteworthy canes; use 'p' (previous) to go back to previous cane; 'c' (clear) to reset zoom; and click wherever you wish.

Murano Fantasy

Event Horizon Sunsets are a class of art works generated through an algorithm which uses Perlin noise to modulate the color, shape, and convexity of a continuous surface. The sunsets are generated instantly in a practical infinity of combinations, and it is possible to write a machine learning classifier that selects the most beautiful ones. Event Horizon Sunset (Series C) follows two previous series of Sunsets, with 5 and 9 works respectively. Series C is special because some of the randomly generated Sunsets have a "close proximity".

Event Horizon Sunset (Series C)

_There are no artifacts. There are only interpretations._

Glass is about the illusion of simplicity that cocoons us in our everyday existence. A glance at Glass may suggest a foam of bubbles or pebbles under clear water. But on inspection, these simple pictures dissolve. Instead of disks one finds stacked panes of translucent glass, intersecting and overlapping. There is dissonance between fine-scale chaos and the harmony of the aggregate. In Glass, two levels of reality -- panes of glass and the foam of bubbles -- are brought close together in scale, so that our oversimplified impression yields a palpable disquiet.

What appears simple is often anything but. Consider a standard wooden desk. To our eyes, it looks solid and continuous, but we know that it is made of atoms, tiny electrons orbiting nuclei. And these subatomic particles are themselves not like miniature solar systems, but creatures of quantum mechanics, stranger than we can imagine. The vast difference in scale between the atomic and the macroscopic hides this complex reality, but fundamentally it is the same phenomenon shown here.

Glass continues my exploration of emergence. While in previous work I explored how simple systems can create complex, emergent forms, here the interest is in the converse: how coherence is often deceptive, masking a complex underlying reality.

Glass draws on the aesthetic of Shin Hanga artists Hiroshi Yoshida and Kawase Hasui, and abstract expressionist Sonja Sekula. In live view, Glass has ambient motion: the shadows evolve, imperceptibly slowly.

The following variations & controls are possible. You may need to click on the canvas before they are active. For a high-resolution output, use the pixel density controls. For example, on a standard laptop, an image saved at pixel density 5 will be approximately 3200 x 4000 pixels, and therefore suitable for printing at ~ 11" x 13" at 300 dpi.

Variations (require redrawing):

f -- fit-to-screen on/off
o -- outline on/off

Controls:

s   -- save as png
spacebar  -- pause/unpause ( useful to reduce CPU load in Live mode )
b -- border on/off ( useful for printing )
1-9  -- set pixel density (default=2 on retina displays)
+/-  -- increase/decrease pixel density

Glass

"Rotae" explores the vast array of beautiful and unexpected shapes that can appear from the simple process of letting wheels rotate on (many more) wheels. Taking a step beyond what the physical toy could do that many of us have played with (long ago) and stringing together anywhere from three to eight wheels. The algorithm starts by determining the number of wheels and what "m-fold" symmetry to achieve. From there the radii and frequencies are calculated per wheel in such a way as to ensure that the output won't turn into chaos, but an unpredictable, yet fully symmetric path that closes on itself. Giving a seemingly endless variety in the paths that get drawn. After a few seconds you can watch how the line gets drawn, possibly revealing unexpected shapes hidden within.

Rotae

Tens of thousands of particles are traversing the force field, leaving a trail in their path. The sum of their trails reveals the face of the eldritch horror hidden in a token hash. Some look like smoke, some look like tentacle-mouthed elder gods. What do YOU see there?

"Summoning Ritual" is an exploration of generating emergent pareidolia-inducing shapes using particles, symmetry, and a set of force fields. 5142 bytes of javascript is just enough to summon visions of ethereal beings.

Requires a WebGL-enabled browser. Renders in real-time. Speed and quality depend heavily on the canvas size (the particle size and count are functions of the canvas size). Keys l(ow),m(edium) and h(igh) switch rendering quality. Keys 1-5 control the rendering speed.

Any similarity to actual deities, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Summoning Ritual #99
PZS

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Summoning Ritual #99.css-1wclmit{display:none;}@media (min-width: 768px){.css-1wclmit{display:inline;}} • .css-ymsk1t{white-space:nowrap;font-weight:400;}PZS

features

Summoning Ritual #99
PZS