WAVE MACHINE
Wave Machine is a procedural animation inspired by wave functions - the fundamental formulas that permeate quantifiable definitions of the formation of the natural world. In recreating the diverse multiplicity of constructions generated from these oscillating functions upon a digital canvas, Wave Machine marries the natural and the digital – coexisting at the intersection, with zeroes and ones running like parallel backbones. Where the digital jumps between two points, waves flow and each next step is an as-yet to be determined destination.The screen surface is divided into a symmetrical grid. Each unit of the grid contains a creatively applied wave function, defined and coded with the trigonometric functions sine and cosine. The speed with which the functions cycle fluctuates, adding another layer of complexity. A standard Cartesian grid houses the units, containing the unknown within the house of the known. Infinity in boxes.Seen without beginning or end, the movement extends infinitely forward and backward in time. Focus dissolves and time suspends. A window is made into a secret world that is ever-present and presently changing. Wave Machine pulls up a curtain, revealing a world science has defined, but that remains elusive to the naked eye. What has been explained is now transformed into experience. For a moment, you can step into that place where scale distorts and the invisible comes into focus. What is real is only what you know and how you come to know it. Wave Machine adds another facet to the facts, adding poetry and giving them back their groove.
About the artist:
Michelle Kirby is an ambient artist and creative coder. A nature lover, and science enthusiast, Michelle became curious about patterns of growth. After reading The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art, and Architecture by Gyorgy Doczi, she became fascinated by laws of concentric and proportional growth. Drawing inspiration from scientifically defined micro and macro perspectives, she creates work that explores these invisible realities that are perpetually in motion. Transforming captured facts into personified moving particles, the focus shifts from the known destination into the space between. What if, instead of events, there was only motion? Originally from Cleveland Ohio, Michelle now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
MICHELLE KIRBY [US]