Quarantine is my second Art Blocks project and while it's intended to be light-hearted fun, it's also a reflection on the period of time we all faced during the initial outbreak of COVID-19. Governments and medical professionals around the world have worked tirelessly to try and keep people alive, identify the viral weaknesses, and develop vaccines so we may all return to a healthy life. All the while, an unprecedented amount of misinformation preaching anti-science conspiracies continues to spread like wildfire. It's been frustrating but I hope that this collection will inspire personal reflection & gratitude, while providing a touch of humour to aid in mental releif.
Breaking a Raymarch Algorithmn
While learning how to develop a fragment shader for the first time - aiming to draw 3D geometry using signed distance functions via a raymarching algorithm - my curiousity was piqued. What would happen if I reduced the number of rays? What happens if the raymarch always returns a cummulative value, even when missing geo? After testing many "what if" thoughts, I discovered a "broken" raymarch function and set of variables that would produce what I call an "unwrap" function for SDF geometry. Exploring the creative bounds of this function eventually lead me to this project. Below is an illustration of how the art is constructed and finally unwrapped.
To learn more about the techniques used in this project, I've written an interactive article which gives more information on the creative process of experimentation behind it: https://observablehq.com/@owenmoore/unwrapping-signed-distance-functions
Features Breakdown
While developing the artwork there were many obvious technical features that produced interesting visual results - scaling equations, tinting colors, polar reflections, adding noise, etc - but the real challenge was constraining them to a consistent range and mapping a subset to mint features such that they help tell the story. Each set of features describes both the visual attributes of the artwork and the categorization you, as the scientific observer in this story, would determine by studying the sample.
Hazard
What is the origin of the hazard causing the global quarantine?
The predominant shape and type of patterns generated.
Stage
What is the condition of the patient from which the sample was collected?
Which colored tone is applied on top of the randomized base colors.
Risk
How much risk of permanent health effects or death does this pose to humanity?
The amount of visual noise and subliminal reflections.
Variant
How many mutations / transformations have occured since first observance?
How many polar rotation reflections are used? (2 to 10)
