Morphing Chaos (2022)
Exhibited and performed at Perception Shift, Union Hall in Denver
Morphing Chaos consists of a video artwork and live interactive performance that explores the relationship between living and nonliving things and their interconnectedness in the natural world. The work was installed and performed at Union Hall, Denver, as part of the exhibition Perception Shift, curated by Amy Hoagland from January to February 2022. For Morphing Chaos, I programmed a visual sequence of generative digital organisms representing ecological connectivity with mutant interactions. The work's title, Morphing Chaos, comes from the concept of chaos computing— a branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems exhibiting chaotic behavior. In Morphing Chaos, chaotic morphing refers to the nonlinear circuit that produces unpredictable and often random patterns. However, despite this apparent randomness, patterns that emerge from chaos are self-organizing and reflect the system's underlying order. The work focuses on the spread of a virus to represent the interactions between living and nonliving things. In this context, the virus is a metaphor for how ecological systems are interconnected and how disturbances in one part of the system can have far-reaching effects. ​​
The organic cell-like structures are created by a feedback loop technique in TouchDesigner that I learned from bileam tschepe (elekktronaut) to create organic growth visuals. It starts with a simple circle and employs a series of nodes, including noise, composite, and luma blur, to gradually expand this circle into a more complex structure. The feedback loop allows the blurred image to feed back into itself, enhancing the growth effect over time. I manipulated parameters like the noise seed, blur strength, and resolution to achieve different aesthetic outcomes, including an 8-bit appearance or mirrored images.
​​Like the generative graphics that drive the visuals, the live performance is nonlinear, so the audience can come and go throughout. Spectators interact with the audiovisual elements by bringing a small stone or trinket they collected. The instructions were to delicately hold the objects above a LeapMotion sensor or tap them together in front of a microphone. These movements generated visuals within a projected image and contributed to sound effects, asking the audience to recognize their interaction with these objects.
