David Wicks :: Works » generative

Drawing Water

Wicks — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:06:04 +0000

Drawing Water is a constructed landscape shaped by the relationship between where water falls and where it’s consumed within the United States. It builds images to expose the reality that water is channeled, pumped, and siphoned to locations far from where it falls. Although the paths are imagined, Drawing Water is based on real data and it reveals a clear truth about water resources and use.

Drawing Water plays a bit upon the 19th-century theory that “rain follows the plow.” At the time of its inception, that theory promoted Westward expansion, under the belief that plowing fields encouraged cloud formation and rainfall. As long as people plowed fields, they believed, water would come to them. Although we recognize climatological reality isn’t influenced by our farming (in the manner hoped), Americans still live with an illusion of resource availability following need.

The project is realized as a series of high-resolution print images as well as an interactive, animated map. Each print displays the cumulative rainfall across the United States for a season, starting with Spring 2010 and continuing through Winter 2011. Each line in a print corresponds to a daily rainfall measurement. The length of the line and its initial placement are determined by the amount of rainfall measured and where it fell. The final placement and color of each line are determined by the influence of urban water consumers. The more water a city uses, the stronger its pull on the rainfall. As rainfall is pulled farther from where it fell, it changes color from blue to black.

Winter 2011

Midwest, Winter 2011

Southwest, Winter 2011

Installation video of Drawing Water in the New Wight Gallery at UCLA.

Drawing Water uses water consumption data provided by the USGS and rainfall data provided by NOAA/NWS. The data is downloaded and parsed with a series of python scripts.

I generated the prints using software written on top of the Cinder framework. I also built the interactive mapping application and controller on top of Cinder.

Drawing Water was shown as part of the UCLA D|MA thesis exhibition: Tell them nothing of the things I thought about and created while I was sleeping.

Bend

Wicks — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:38:06 +0000

Bend developed as a playful way to respond to the fold in a book. Visually, it was informed by a series of photographs taken by spacecraft Cassini.

The program creates a series of lines, and then creates a series of deformers that warp them using gravity-like forces. After completing the static version, I produced a generative animation using a modified version of the software.

Jacob’s Cave

Wicks — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:19:06 +0000

Jacob’s Cave developed in response to seeing a range of helictite formations in a show cave in Missouri. Helictites grow downward, but also spiral up when the influence of forces like capillary action become stronger than gravity. I created a physics simulation which grows forms in a similar manner. The drawing is generally under the control of gravity, but other forces cause it to grow upward and into spiraling shapes.

Study for a Continuous Landscape

Wicks — Wed, 05 May 2010 22:05:38 +0000

Study for a Continuous Landscape is a procedural animation that follows a group of travelers wandering over a field of barnacles. The image of barnacles is edited so that it can be repeated infinitely as the travelers move across it.

The work exists as a custom software projection, written in c++ using the cinder framework.

Watch in HD on vimeo.

Tamarisk: Test Installation

Wicks — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:51:47 +0000

software, paper, concrete, salt.

Process photos on flickr.

Particulate

Wicks — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:09:39 +0000

A photograph is turned into a cloud of colored dust that wants to settle at its origin. Disturbances push the dust away from its origins, and the trails of dust build up over time.

White Glove Flocking

Wicks — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:08:21 +0000

Using the data from white glove tracking, I rendered the entire performance from the landmark television broadcast of Billy Jean in a single frame. Computer agents danced over the frame, with different degrees of tightness controlling how closely they followed Michael’s glove.