When does a work stop being the representation of our world and become art?
Can we appreciate a work of art without measuring it with our space-time parameters?
In Time Atlas 🌐 the link with our Earth shaped over millennia through the urbanization process is explicit.
Time Atlas 🌐 uses geo-referenced city data intensively and displays it randomly in geographic areas, showing the current time of each city, whether it is currently exposed to the sun, at night or at dusk by changing the reference color palette . There are over 200 cities collected in its monumental internal archive, each with its own latitude and longitude values, UTC and DST time, number of inhabitants.
Each instance shows a square of our land, the cities arrange you in a grid that respects the distances in proportion. The background rotates to the current value of seconds which is the same all over the world. It is potentially composed of 8 geometric elements that can be present with different probabilities.
City clocks can be of 4 different shapes; the length of the pendulum that rotates with the time of the seconds is composed of 5 elements that combine randomly but the length of the pendulum corresponds to the number of inhabitants of that city.
The elements of the composition can be turned off and on again thanks to these keys:
[c] toggle cities
[w] toggle watches
[b] toggle background
Finally, there is the Written Circles variation. It takes up a past work of mine with the same title and in my initial idea it had to be the only aspect of Time Atlas 🌐. The salient feature of the Written Circles display is that it does not have a rotating background but, for each city, the crown of minutes is proportional to the number of inhabitants, therefore interesting moiré effects are obtained in superimposition. 

Time Atlas 🌐

An evolving generative art project, inspired by the longing to connect with nature. It explores the relationship between art, code and nature. - "Becoming the Mountains and Rivers". 
The series explores the mythic idea of a time that came before, when we were one with nature and ourselves. This landscape refuses to hold still. Instead, the viewer is asked to contemplate about being the constant in this ever changing space. They are the only thing that can create a true moment in an otherwise fluid and dynamic world. The piece invites viewers to become fully immersed in the landscape, to contemplate their own inner zen and to feel a sense of calm and peace as they watch the land, water, and sky move and flow. It is an invitation to appreciate the beauty of nature and to reflect on the endless yearning for completeness that we all experience at some point in our lives. Like a postcard that transports us to another time, or a memory that provokes feelings of longing and missing, "Longing" invites us to reconnect with ourselves and to find peace in the ever-flowing river of life in the current moment.

The piece uses generative code to create a space where one can appreciate the beauty of nature while gaining a new perspective on how we perceive art. Instead of presenting viewers with the conventional form of a painting’s static view-through-the-window, Longing takes viewers into a living and breathing artwork. Just as nature moves in patterns that we know how to anticipate but can’t predict, Longing also moves in ever-evolving patterns that are both comforting and surprising. In this way, Longing challenges the static nature of painting while testing out where digital art can take us—is this a form of art that is in sync with nature? Or does it take us further away by inserting additional layers of mediation? Longing does not answer these questions, but it helps us contemplate possible responses, and pushes us to reconsider the nature and purpose of art in the 21st century.

Technical details
Immersive~ The artwork would fit any format ratio and resolution, hit full screen to widen the view and experience the work in landscape formats.

Evolving~ Movement: Time lapse after draw starting at the featured time and transitioning to the local time of the work, when local time is settled the work will display the current time and evolve the sky with it. Accompanied with the slow movement of colors ramps in the landscape, and water rippling.

Output~ 
~Press "s" to save a .PNG file at any stage at current resolution. 
~Press "p" to render and save a high resolution .PNG file for print x3 current resolution.

Created and developed by Ronen Tanchum and Ori Ben Shabat

Longing

"Organized Disruption" uses a circle packing algorithm to position and scale objects on a plane in an organized pleasing composition. A series of weighted probabilities determines how this composition is disrupted by picking 1 of 3 forms... squares, spheres (slight elevation off plane), rectangles (extreme elevation off plane). Probability also determines 1 of 9 color sets (some colors being harder to acquire), and 3 possible color animations (slow, medium, fast). Each seeded token hash "might" unlock a collection of mouse interactions... proximity object displacement, proximity scale up, proximity scale down, proximity object mutation, proximity object rotation. All minted compositions include "mouse + click + drag" to rotate the system. All minted compositions can press the "s" key on your keyboard to "save" an image.

Organized Disruption

CryptoVenetians are a limited release algorithmically generated pixel art collection based on real characters from Venice, CA. Available only to visitors of the Bright Moments physical NFT gallery, CryptoVenetians grant holders exclusive access to IRL events and experiences in Los Angeles. With over 200,000 possible combinations, CryptoVenetians represent the diversity of Venice Beach.

CryptoVenetian

Enchiridion is inspired by the Enchiridion Physicae Restitutae by Jean D'Espagnet which rejected the idea of the empyrean, claiming that all natural things exist in unity. This is represented through geometric forms which show structure, unity, and causation vs. the amorphous forms of Empyrean.

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Time Atlas 🌐 #187

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