Hiding In-between
2021
Multi-media installation including two video projections and a sculpture element.
36”x48”x60” printed canopy, wood, twine
Turing pattern is a concept introduced by Alan Turing, which describes how a mathematical equation can be used to explain how animals get their patterns (zebras, cheetahs, etc.) It’s known as reaction-diffusion equation, which postulates that the patterns arise from 2 different chemicals (inhibitors and activators) reacting to each other and ultimately reaches an equilibrium resulting in the stunning patterns we see in nature. In the current increasingly polarized socio-political climate, I find myself caught paralyzed between overwhelming issues such as climate change, racism, global politics, pandemic, and day-to-day routine such as family, friends, bills, work, etc. Somewhere between issues very large and very small, is where most of us lead our lives. But like the pandemic, the grand narratives being played out on the global stage do eventually seep into our lives and affect us profoundly, whether we know it or not. I used my experience as a programmer to code the reaction-diffusion equation into an image altering algorithm. I fed a satellite image of my neighborhood and a microscopic image of skin into the program, which output an integrated image of the two and the transformation, somewhere between the very large and very small.
Code
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For more detailed explanation about Turing Patterns and the code that I used as base, I would like to credit Lain Barr for making this project possible, which can be found here.
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As mentioned in Credit, I have employed the BaseStateSystem class found here, as basis for generating my Turing Patterns. For the purpose of my project, I created a new class TwoImageInitialiser, that would allow me to feed 2 JPG image files and plot them in a grid as initial system conditions. I then tweaked TwoDimensionalRDEquations to implement my initialiser class.
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