They are microcosm and macrocosm in one, scale-similar collections of eddies, biblical whirlpools, reminiscent of the birth of the universe.
Each work is the result of a high-resolution, computationally intense simulation of a classical fluid. They are frozen moments in virtual time, captured in excruciating detail on a canvas print. Each piece is also unique - one print only will be made.
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3500 USD
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3500 USD
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
on loan until 2025
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3500 USD
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
SOLD
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
on loan until 2025
30"x60" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3750 USD
The works in the Immaculate Collision (2014-7) series are x-ray images of the collision of large fluid droplets, but generated by complex algorithms and emerging only after trillions of mathematical operations. The works are 19.5"x30" dye on glass or digital chromogenic prints laminated in glass, and are offered at SENSE Fine Art in Menlo Park, California, or directly from the artist.
19.5”x30” transparency, laminated glass
unique
2017
available with acrylic mounts at 3000 USD
Colliding, turbulent, virtual fluids, captured in glass for eternity
30”x19.5” transparency, laminated glass
unique
2017
available with acrylic mounts at 3000 USD
30”x19.5” transparency, laminated glass
unique
2017
available with acrylic mounts at 3000 USD
19.5"x30" dye on glass
unique
2014
19.5"x30" dye on glass
unique
2014
19.5"x30" dye on glass
unique
2014
30"x19.5" dye on glass
unique
2014
19.5"x30" dye on glass
unique
2014
30"x19.5" dye on glass
unique
2015
30"x19.5" dye on glass
unique
2015
19.5"x30" dye on glass
unique
2015
Generative systems need not have their actors move in a physical or virtual space, instead they can merely trade with their neighbors. Some of the very first computer-based generative simulations (of weapons physics in the 1950s and 1960s) used this method. Works in this series were made using a similar algorithmic process in which color is passed from pixel to pixel in a regular grid using a very specific set of instructions. These simple instructions and very limited interaction range nevertheless generate system-level structure and form.
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3500 USD
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3500 USD
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3500 USD
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2018
available stretched at 3500 USD
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2018
available stretched at 3500 USD
Fourth in a series of video works, the theme of The Yin And Yang Are Fractal is simple: that there exist within the monolithic concept of the Yin and Yang multilayered and ever-changing interactions between scales large and small, reflective of the dynamic, complex organisms which we see as embodying the concept.
Frames simulated using my custom vic2d solver at 8192x4608 and reduced slightly for FUHD (8K, 4320p) resolution.
3m04s, FUHD / 4320p / 8K
2015
Complex systems are born from activity at the intersection of two or more competing forces or elements. A closer look at the boundary between black and white reveals a fractal-like interface, with yet smaller and more tangled boundaries.
8"x16" digital archival inkjet print
edition of 100
2015
UHD digital video, 1:00:00
2018
The Exchange at 100 Federal Street
36"x36" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2012
This piece is the result of an intricate numerical computation on an initially-banded field of color. The amount of energy and detail in this piece must be seen in person.
36"x36" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2012
Sale Pending
Green Flow is a study of mixing in static flow fields.
8"x16" digital archival inkjet print
edition of 100
2011
Meant to evoke the deep, hot underbelly of the Earth, Magma 19 depicts a virtual flow of red-hot molten magma and nearby cooler rock. The immense detail in the plumes, ebbs, and eddies create many tiny fluid landscapes across the entire piece. Because this simulation is based on real physics, familiar shapes and patterns emerge in the system as warmer media rises, boundaries become unstable, vortexes dissipate, and energy cascades between physical scales.
45"x31" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2011
Sale Pending
Midnight in the Bathtub of Good and Evil is a representation of a classic battle cast in mathematical terms. Armies of fluid face off across the battlefield. Plans are made and set into motion as time advances. Inevitably, all plans go to hell upon first contact with the opposition. Many warriors wind up encountering opposite-moving enemies and are diverted into a swirling dance. Structures of scales large and small are created in the ensuing chaos and no preference is shown for either side. Is this a slow cascading march toward homogenaity? What is lost or gained from this reductionist representation? Parallels seem to exist between free will en masse and the amoral advance of nature.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2007
Virtual fluids are nothing of the sort. To define a virtual fluid in 0s and 1s requires an underlying data structure (as does defining anything digitally). When stripped of all normal visual context, a fluid reveals this (computational) structure. These are the building blocks upon which virtual simulations of reality are based.
Fluid motion is a category of motion significantly more rich than those which define our engineered world: translation, skew, rotation; as it encompasses them all, unique at every point, and constantly changing in time. Amorph is a digital image of a massless mass of motion, digitally perfect, confined yet uncontrolled, revealing its secrets over time.
36"x36" digital chromogenic print face-mounted on acrylic
edition of 5
2019
3000 USD
Inside The Bomb depicts a possible instance of energy moving from a chemical state to a kinetic state. Just as quickly, powerful emotions are transferred from an individual to the community. All original meaning and order are lost in the turbulence.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2007
Smoke Water Fire is a digital animation of a deforming blob of fluid that has been slowed down and stripped of environmental context in order to explore the shape of ephemeral media. The animation addresses several interrelated themes: context and speed, commonality of the equations of physics, and ephemerality of fluid media. It does this through its use of scale-free computational fluid physics, abstract digital representations, and projected moving pictures. Because of its purely computational nature, Smoke Water Fire removes any context of material or physical scale and leaves the viewer with little more than the dynamics of the shape itself.
digital video, 1080p @30fps, 4m11s
2008
This visually-real but impossible structure is the result of an accurate fluid dynamic calculation of wholly unattainable initial conditions. Familiar behavior exists in this object, despite its obvious artificiality.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2000
Until this image emerged from my computer, I was on track to be an engineer. Seeing this changed my mind.
computational digital image
not for sale
2000
Reflections and recreations of the hierarchy of currents and eddies in the ocean, and their little-understood effect on global climate change and life itself.
40"x40" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3500 USD
30"x60" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
SOLD
30"x60" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3750 USD
30"x60" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2023
available stretched at 3750 USD
42"x28" digital archival inkjet print on canvas
unique
2012
available framed at 3000 USD
If the universe is made of particles, and each particle affect every other particle in the universe (electromagnetically, gravitationally, etc.) how can we posit that anything is independent? Even with very simple rules governing their interactions, virtual particles easily and quickly self-organize into larger and larger structures. The set of rules, or algorithm, upon which these works are based was designed to mimic the behavior of ideal fluids, and the emerging shapes are recognizable as vortical flow and fluid turbulence.
Diaspora is a real-time, generative artwork displaying never-ending and never-repeating patterns of swirling, interacting, colorful lines. It is not just a short and elegant algorithm, but the structure of the calculation is designed to generate chaotic motion and assemblies, and the intense arithmetic required to create the work has been hyper-optimized to excel on a tiny computer.
generative algorithm, minicomputer, UHD display recommended
edition of 10
2021
8000 USD
UHD video, 1:00:00
Excerpt (Vermeer)
2020
On display at The Exchange at 100 Federal
Untitled (2011) is an experimental image of rectangular solids in space. Tension is created by juxtaposing the rigid, mechanical shapes of the elements with the larger-scale fluid forms they helped compose. Photographic-like depth-of-field further aims to blur the lines between virtual and real.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2011
This is a collection of vortex particles in the wake of an oval aircraft. Unlike a plant's rolled-up tendril, the core of this vortex has diffused into itself to make a unified, but heterogenous, structure.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2005
Nobody ever said that science is easy. Solving the mysteries of science requires hard work. While there may be one "ah-hah" moment---where the true form of the problem is revealed---that moment is always preceded by countless hours of careful research.
In the course of my own dissertation research, I consulted several books and hundreds of academic papers with over 5000 pages in total. Distilling this knowledge and adding my own minor contributions still led to 400 new pages of text and 600 pages of computer code.
This image represents the paper equivalent of that work. Each revision of each page of code that I wrote appears on one page in this image. In addition, the code on the pages was actually used to create the flowing forms in the image. The fluid-like cascade of paper reminds me of feeling overwhelmed at the volume of information that had to be considered.
30"x48" digital archival inkjet print
edition of 5
2009
3500 USD
At the center of a supernova fluid tries to escape, but it's like pushing on a string when everything is a string. Chaotic Escape is a series of works from perfect virtual simulations of an impossible condition, created by intricate algorithms, and performed on a desktop supercomputer.
16"x16" digital chromogenic print
edition of 10
2015
available framed for 475 USD, 325 unframed
16"x16" digital chromogenic print
edition of 10
2015
available framed for 475 USD, 325 unframed
16"x16" digital chromogenic print
edition of 10
2015
available framed for 475 USD, 325 unframed
16"x16" digital chromogenic print
edition of 10
2015
available framed for 475 USD, 325 unframed
We typically think of landscape as long-lived and large-scale, but with the proliferation of powerful sensors, computers, data storage, and delivery, we are realizing that the geology on which we live is more dynamic and detailed than expected.
20"x30" archival print, face-mount acrylic
edition of 10
2023
available at 1000 USD
Completely digital recreation of a scene near Lobatos, Colorado, on Sept 28, 2022
8"x16" archival print, face-mount acrylic
edition of 10
2023
available individually at 350 USD
MESO is a realtime, ultra-high definition video installation. It randomly cycles through thousands of images of digital landscape elevation data, covering the majority of North America. Each image is a direct translation of digital elevation data, where white represents the highest surface elevation in the field, and black the lowest. In removing all of the usual context from these images of the Earth's landscape, we reveal patterns and forms inherent in the land, but normally hidden from view.
The title "MESO" stands for "meso-scale", or "in between scales." The data in this work are in between two scales that viewers find familiar: the global scale, such as the shapes of continents and nations; and the local, micro-scale, such as a person's town or neighborhood. The technological emergence of powerful sensors, supercomputers, large-scale data storage, and global networking finally allows exploration of these meso-scales in all areas of science. This work intends to slowly and thoroughly reveal the myriad shapes and patterns of the Earth's surface at these intermediate scales.
2m52s (Excerpt), 14h (Full length), UHD/2160p video
2016
available as complete installation at 5000 USD
27”x48” digital print
edition of 10
2016
24"x24" archival inkjet bonded to acrylic
edition of 25
2016
available at 750 USD
16"x16" archival inkjet on paper
edition of 25
2016
An interface is a boundary between two separate regimes. It can be a coastline, a border, the surface of the ocean, our skin, or language. The behavior of that boundary depends on the properties of that which it separates. I am intrigued by those boundaries, and how they move. In these works, I focus on the movement of a fluid boundary, both virtually and visually. As they stretch and fold and deform, they bring more of the two volumes into contact, and generate a much more complex, tangled, and interesting space.
In my observance of fluid motion in nature, certain shapes and patterns most often come to mind: the thin wispy structure of an old cloud, a candle flame, roiling smoke from a smokestack, or wavy mirages in a pot of water soon after I turn the heat on. These patterns, and their manifestations, are still multilayered physical systems, with the effects of viscosity, inertia, baroclinicity, combustion, heat transfer, surface tension, reflection, and refraction all playing a role. Removing all effects, save inertia and baroclinicity, creates shapes of the kind seen in Droplet #7...Revisited.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2006
My subjects are usually abstract, fluid-like forms, born from lengthy computational fluid dynamics simulations. The surfaces represent boundaries between fluids in a virtual space, and those fluids are constrained to obey certain rules of physics. In The Trouble With Algorithmic Art, the subject is the result of a simulation of the collision of three spherical blobs. The surfaces are rendered as thin, colored, sheets of glass in front of a virtual lightbox. The image is then presented as a transparency, illuminated by a real lightbox.
The Trouble With Algorithmic Art describes a frustration that I sometimes feel with my chosen form of artistic expression. Because I use computational algorithms to define the detail and structure of my subjects, the resulting forms should only bear resemblance to natural shapes insofar as those natural shapes originate from the same fluid forces. For example, when I view my simulation results, I might expect to see a cloud, but not a book. But the pattern-matching capability of the human mind conveniently ignores such physical limitations---especially in the rigid medium of a still image---and mine regularly conjures an embarrassingly puerile form.
Pair of 30"x24" overlaid digital chromogenic prints, light box
edition of 5
2009
"Open House" is a combination of deterministic physics and stochastic detail culminating in a believable but alien landscape. The general shape is from the artist's computational fluid dynamics research, details are placed algorithmically, and the final rendering made with Radiance, an accurate and capable pseudo-radiosity raytracer.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2006
In my observance of fluid motion in nature, certain shapes and patterns most often come to mind: the thin wispy structure of an old cloud, a candle flame, roiling smoke from a smokestack, or wavy mirages in a pot of water soon after I turn the heat on. These patterns, and their manifestations, are still multilayered physical systems, with the effects of viscosity, inertia, baroclinicity, combustion, heat transfer, surface tension, reflection, and refraction all playing a role. Removing all effects, save inertia and baroclinicity, creates shapes of the kind seen in "Droplet no. 7."
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2004
This work is a tribute to the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, whose woodblock print "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" (c. 1829-32) is not only one of the most-recognized pieces of Japanese art, but is also appreciated by turbulence researchers as an early representation of the "turbulent cascade" of energy from large to small scales. This image is a contemporary computational re-imagining of the original work, this time juxtaposing the amoral wrath of nature with the deterministic progression of a computational algorithm. The algorithm used to create the piece was the result of five years of research into vortex sheet dynamics, and still represents the state-of-the-art six years later. The tension in the piece between the computational and natural worlds became all the more relevant when, shortly after creating the piece, a powerful earthquake struck the ocean floor off the shores of Japan, sending a tsunami over numerous coastal seawalls and causing immeasurable suffering.
8"x16" archival inkjet print
edition of 100
2010
Natural convection is the coordinated upward motion of warmer fluid and downward motion of cooler fluid and is the mechanism by which energy is minimized in a heated system such as a kettle of water or a radiator-heated living room. "Boil" shows the interface between these fluids as they jockey for position and begin turning over.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2005
36"x36"x36" EPS foam
unique
2017
4.5"x12"x4.5" Selective laser sintered nylon
1 of 50 unique prints in the series
2016
available at 800 USD
24"x24"x24" EPS foam, plaster, paint
unique
2016
A streamline is a static representation of a dynamic flow. Works in this series were created with an algorithm that was originally designed to study blood flow through artificial heart valves. But these algorithms are simply tools: operating on input and generating output. The algorithms are not prejudiced toward the input, be it scientific or not, realizable or not; they operate without regard.
12”x12” digital print on paper
edition of 50
2014
The words "fluid dynamics" may bring memories of the swirling patterns in coffee, the smoke rising from a candle that has just been blown out, or the chaotic motions of rice grains in boiling water. None of these, though, can hold a flame to the largest (and frightfully close) mass of constantly-convecting and active fluid flow that we know of: the sun. The combined action of magnetism, temperature, and convection---which are all amenable to the same computational methods---creates the dynamo effect. These intertwined forces result in amazingly complex behaviors. This image pays homage to the chaotic and powerful mass of hydrogen and helium that gives us life.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2006
This piece continues a theme dominant in much of my work of the juxtaposition of real and unreal elements. The visible tubes flowing in the foreground are rendered with a physically-validated lighting simulator, making them look as realistic as technology and science today permit. Despite that, the streamlines float in space, and do not crash to the ground or bend under their own weight as real objects would. Their shapes are also formed by a very accurate computational method that is the result of several years of concerted research by the artist---an aerospace engineer; nevertheless, the vortexes that mold the flow are positioned according to completely impossible conditions for a real physical system.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 24
2006
This piece is one in a series of three related works, each of which portrays a collection of streamlines confined to stay within a bounding volume. Each piece in the Extruded Simplices series shares common geometry, volumes, and proportions. As subcomponents, each streamline is an extrusion of a sphere through an artificial flowfield in three-dimensional space. Likewise, the overall shape of the collection of streamlines in each piece implies a different extrusion: a sphere, a cylinder, a cylindrical hole in a flat plane. I chose to emphasize this hierarchy of simple and complex as a way of comparing the hierarchy of natural objects to the methods of computational science.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2005
The essential component of wavy flow is the vortex. In isolation, a single vortex simply influences its surroundings to orbit around itself at a speed proportional to the inverse square of the distance to the vortex's axis. When a large number of vortexes are put together in a specific pattern, certain large-scale shapes can be created; when put together in a statistically-significant pattern, true fluid turbulence can be simulated; but when completely disorganized, they describe the flowfield seen here. This image represents 1000 streamlines in a field of 10,000 vorticies.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2003
One dimension higher than a single vortex particle (not a true fluid dynamic solution itself) is a vortex filament. Within fluid turbulence exist these invisible and intertwined vortex filaments.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2003
In this image, a single intertwined vortex filament represents a frozen instant of fluid turbulence. This structure has infinte depth in all dimensions but up, and the geometric detail continues down to pixel-level. The advanced lighting algorithm used in the rendering process accentuates the gloomy depths of the convoluted tangle.
24"x48" digital chromogenic print
edition of 10
2003
Virtual Reality is a technology as important as the computer monitor. It breaks the rectangle through which we perceive the virtual.
Smoke Water Fire is a digital video of a virtual simulation of fluid flow. It is rendered in 360-3D format for viewing on a VR stereo head-mounted display. Its 7225 frames were rendered in high-dynamic range (HDR) at 11520x11520 resolution over the course of 8 months in 2015 using Radiance, a synthetic lighting simulation software package. The simulation data is from a front-tracking vortex method of my own construction, was generated in mid-2007, and took two weeks to complete.
The name, Smoke Water Fire, comes from the fact that the underlying dynamics of fluid flow are universal: the formulas give no priority or inclination toward smoke, water, or fire. Only with virtual simulations of flow can we strip away the normal visual context of a fluid and look at its essential motions, and only then can we begin to understand what is means to be fluid, dynamic, ever-changing.
Watch the surround-VR version here.
The language of science often cannot understand the language of art, and vice versa. Though my works are rooted in scientific exploration using algorithmic computer simulations, their realization reveals hidden complexities not only in mathematics, but all of the sciences built upon it. The academic conference is the context and the poster the medium in which many very new discoveries are first shared. These posters are artwork disguised as science. Or are they science disguised as artwork?
Autopsy of an ephemeral fluid phenomenon - Trefoil Knot is a scientific deconstruction of the turbulent decay of a trefoil knot vortex, a situation impossible to construct in physical reality. It was generated using an advanced computational fluid dynamics software which would otherwise be used to optimize wind farms, heart valves, or flying cars.
Digitial archival inkjet print on canvas
48”x48”
unique
2018
4500 USD
36"x24" digital inkjet print, foam board, lamination
unique
2015
36"x24" digital inkjet print, foam board, lamination
nique
2015
Allowing shapes to self-generate and self-perpetuate is the crux of the aleatoric art movement. Algorithmic process works, such as these, begin as a set of rules and a world (initial condition). Sometimes it takes millions of iterations for a pattern to emerge, sometimes much less, depending on the complexity of the algorithm and the conditions on which it operated.
Sprawl is a digital image of a chaotic branch-like structure growing on and around a regular array of blocks. The form taken by the dark growth is from a simulation of a local surface-growth phenomenon called diffusion-limited aggregation. This piece contrasts two seemingly different growth patterns: one preconceived, designed, restrained, and considered artificial; the other impulsive, disorganized, unconstrained, and “natural.” Referring to both the creeping growth of the built environment and the tendency of species to brutally capitalize on evolutionary advantages, Sprawl suggests that the two forms of growth are really no different.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2009
Diffusion is a mathematical and physical smoothing process, intrinsically simple and visually not interesting. In comparison, diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) creates, through a stochastic diffusion, incredibly detailed branched structures. This piece uses a three-dimensional off-lattice DLA simulation to create the object, and a stochastic depth-of-field camera function to visualize it.
24"x24" digital chromogenic print
edition of 25
2004
TinyMtn is a 3D printing design and production company started in 2013. We focus on impeccably-detailed miniature mountains, canyons, islands, ski resorts, golf courses, metropolitan areas, and other landscapes from around the world. We have over 1000 designs on Shapeways and Etsy with prices ranging from $15 to $800. We’ve done custom work for National Parks, National Laboratories, interior design firms, design museums, mining companies, and other clients.
1:250000 scale
5.97 x 3.92 x 0.65 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$86 on Shapeways
1:50000 scale
4.21 x 3.43 x 1.05 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$57 at Shapeways
1:75000 scale
6.58 x 6.58 x 2.3 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$167 at Shapeways
1:100000 scale
4.8 x 4.8 x 0.77 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$79 at Shapeways
1:20000 scale
4.43 x 3.3 x 0.61 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$47 on Shapeways
1:250000 scale
3D printed gypsum and ink
Available soon
1:150000 scale
3.15 x 3.15 x 1.42 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$50 at Shapeways
1:10000 scale
5.2 x 6.93 x 0.56 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$105 at Shapeways
1:500000 scale
3.3 x 5.2 x 0.64 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
Available soon
1:150000 scale
3.74 x 4.71 x 0.67 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$57 at Shapeways
1:25000 scale
3.9 x 5.04 x 0.95 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$78 at Shapeways
1:50000 scale
5.51 x 3.93 x 1.23 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$79 at Shapeways
1:100000 scale
5.51 x 5.51 x 2.31 inches
3D printed gypsum and ink
$147 at Shapeways
MiniCityArt is a design and production firm which creates the most detailed 3D models of cities that you’ll find anywhere. Currently we offer 24 cities, with more added regularly. Learn more about us at minicity.art or on our Etsy site.
24”x30”
Biodegradable PLA, wood
$1500
16”x16”
Biodegradable PLA, wood
$499
8”x8”
Biodegradable PLA, wood
$124
16”x16”
Biodegradable PLA, wood
$499
8”x8”
Biodegradable PLA, wood
$124
24”x24”
Biodegradable PLA, wood
$999
8”x8”
Biodegradable PLA, wood
$124
Laser scanning of urban and rural landscapes provides a wealth of data. We use this data to create incredibly-detailed images of cities and mountains, carefully rendered to appear three-dimensional when hung on your wall. These may look less dramatic than other 3D maps that you may see on your screen or monitor, but when you actually place these on your wall, their fidelity and compatibility will astound you.
These and more can be purchased at https://society6.com/summerstreet
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