Cyber Cities

Particles of light dance to create ephemeral forms that depict the formation of our celestial souls.

*Worlds Within* explores the aesthetics of the invisible as part of the artist’s ongoing research of light in motion. As various forces influence more than 500,000 particles in real time, a dynamic “stardust sculpture” emerges, each reflecting a spirit’s unique personality through forms such as swirling currents, dancing flames, glowing filaments, and neural pathways.

Building upon the use of organic form in *Bubble Blobby*, evocative color in *Glow*, and meditative motion in *Light Beams*, *Worlds Within* additionally simulates simple yet beautiful phenomena in the natural world like gravitation and chromatic aberration to reveal how hidden forces on the micro scale affect the whole in surprising ways.

*Worlds Within* is inspired by Cai Guo-Qiang's pyrotechnics, Thomas Wilfred's kinetic light art, and outer space phenomena. Drawing on these influences to create a unique visual aesthetic, *Worlds Within* gives the viewer a glimpse of the intangible: the stark black background disorients the viewer's perception of setting, scale, and dimension—much like James Turrell’s immersive light works—and draws attention to the center of the frame, where something mysterious and beautiful emerges.

#### Shortcuts
* **q:** toggle quality to lower resolution (default is high)
* **m:** toggle rendering mode to time-based rendering, some frames may be skipped (default is frame-based rendering, every frame is rendered)
* **mouse click + drag:** rotate view
* **spacebar:** pause/resume
* **s:** save screenshot

Note: requires a WebGL2-enabled browser and a decent GPU.

Worlds Within

Liquid Ruminations is an algorithm inspired by the contemplative effect of moving water.

Unique invocations of this algorithm consist of any number of several core components including waves that rise and fall, a flow field powered mist, and droplet shapes arranged in a dancing field that are distorted in a rhythmic, sometimes stormy animation.

These effects are combined and brought to life with mathematical wave functions in order to create movement that is ideally conducive to a meditative state. Viewers are encouraged to take the opportunity to reflect on precious things that we tend to take for granted, primarily easy access to clean water.

The outputs of this algorithm are interactive:

You may toggle a "Liquify" mode on and off by double-clicking the invocations.

Spacebar pauses the animation.

's' key saves a local screenshot.

'r' key reloads the piece.

Please note: This project is very CPU intensive and performs best at moderate resolutions on modern desktop devices. Chrome will provide the best experience. Full screen recommended.

Primary and secondary sales proceeds from this project will be donated to Water.org - an important organization with the critical mission of providing affordable access to safe water to people around the globe.

Liquid Ruminations

**Nära explores the connections that make us human.**

Nära (close or near in Swedish) is a celebration of friendships and relationships throughout our lives. How some of them are small, fleeting and ephemeral while a select few become lifelong bonds. The work examines the intricate graphs that are formed by these connections. Graphs are all around us and have existed for as long as we have been human. From early settlements of hunter-gatherers and nomadic tribes to the internet of today. It's all graphs.

Nära allows the viewer to explore and experience these graphs as a metaphor for the organic, organised chaos that is life. Shapes connect from one node in a graph to the next, sometimes spilling over, doubling down and creating layers of intricacy. Imperfection is embraced and Nära exposes the chaotic and unpredictable elements of life. 

The artistic vision of Nära is to highlight and expose graphs in a tactile manner that allows the viewer to see the whole graph, but also engage with the details and texture.  In doing this, Nära attempts to bring a novel contribution by pushing the boundaries of graph representation and introducing an emotional dimension to this oftentimes rigid and scientific discipline. By treating graphs as a metaphor for relationships in life, they become an integral part of the concept and an important artistic tool. 

Nära takes inspiration from the De Stijl movement in reducing the world into a deliberate expression in its smallest form and builds upon the use of shapes imbued with meaning in the works of Hilma af Klint. These ideas are expanded on by accepting that what is deliberate must also relinquish some control through the pseudo-randomness of generative art. This invites reflection on the balance of control and chance in our lives. 

_Through Nära, you are invited to reflect on the connections in your own life and on the significance of the relationships that define us as human beings._ 

To interact with the script:
- Press 's' to save.
- Add the following to the URL:
  - pd=x, where x is a number to control the resolution via pixel density (useful for rendering high resolution stills)
  - rs=x, where x is a number to enable and control the rendering buildup animation.

Nära

Initially worn by miners and cowboys, roughly half of the world’s population wears denim on a given day, and the range of styles is–literally–endless. A new pair of jeans might be acid bleached, sandblasted, stonewashed, or tie-dyed; it can have hand-sanded rips and tears, followed by visible mendings, patches, intentional paint stains, and more. In an epic attempt to crack the genetic code of denim, Jenim playfully but carefully observes and translates the warp and weft of denim into generative code, weaving unique iterations of irregular, distorted, or hyper-realistic textile crops.

Ironically, imitating aging, a pair of jeans produced today generates more pollution and labor than most average garments. In response, Jenim’s minted iterations go beyond wearables and into infinity. Each year that passes, the color might fade slightly; the rips might expand. Who knows what these artworks will look like ten or even fifty years from now?

Art Blocks Presents

Jenim #52

Orr Kislev & Alona Rodeh

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