This piece began life as a commission, but as far as I can tell, will never be printed. It is rendered at 207 megapixels using a program I wrote from scratch using Actionscript in the form of an air application.



The process begins with me making a colormap. In this case I hope the inspiration is nearly obvious. That colormap is then rendered in flash. There are two categories of moving pieces within these compositions, emitters and particles. Emitters move along a predetermined path, defined mathematically, inspired by celestial motion. Over time and at certain intervals, an emitter will emit a number of particles that move independently, each set on a unique path determined within a set of parameters that is defined from the start.



Each particle is given a color based on its location that corresponds to a location in a colormap that is also drawn and defined by me beforehand. As the particles move, they inherit some inetia from the emitter where they were born, and when the particle's own motion is added the particle is set into a one-of-a-kind path that will never be repeated any where else in the composition. At each one of these emitter intervals, the particle is added to a list of previously emitted particles and I connect the particles to create a ribbon of color. There are millions of ribbons in each composition, each with it's own unique characteristics, all following along the emitter's path. While they are all unique, they are given similar characteristics via the emitter's motion and the colormap from which they pull. The general movement of the colors appears chaotic, but because of the way the colormaps are created, they also feel organized, but not perfect.