Mark Stock at the Big Screen Plaza

Posted by isabelwd / July 5th, 2011 / No responses

As part of LISA’s partnership with the Big Screen Plaza, we will be showing excerpts from one of Mark Stock‘ works during the month of July on the Big Screen at the Eventi Hotel at 30th and 6th in Manhattan.  We are excited that Mark is working with us for this project.

Bio

Mark J. Stock is an artist, programmer, and scientist. His work depicts scenes from the hidden world of computational physics—the science of digitally simulating complex natural phenomena on supercomputers—and is created with custom software developed over the course of his scientific research.

Mark began experimenting with computer simulation and visualization by programming Moire patterns and particle dynamics routines on a Commodore 128. His interests in mathematics and programming continued through high school and led to several degrees in engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 1999, while attempting to debug some of his simulation software, he rendered the suspect program’s output with a highly-accurate lighting visualization package called Radiance. The resulting image, summoned from the 1s and 0s of computational fluid dynamics and artificial radiosity, had such an unnatural beauty and presence that it became the catalyst for his artistic career.

He has been producing art since 2000 and has had work in dozens of curated and juried exhibitions since 2002, including Ars Electronica, ASPECT Magazine, and six SIGGRAPH Art Gallery appearances. Mark works and develops art in his studio in Newton, MA.

Description:

Sinurti 7b

A canonical problem in fluid dynamics is this: an unstable wavy interface deforms under the action of gravity. But science is rarely interested in what happens after the initial growth phase. In “Sinurti”, this motion is followed much further, revealing the persistent, cascading forms at all scales. The underlying algorithm is unaware of fractals, but by its action produces motions with statistical similarity.

Rota 9_5c

Rota is one in a series of ambient visual pieces. Its dancing lines (led by singular vortexes) weave and trace a digital pattern, at the same time chaotic and ordered.

Gyre 29 (excerpt)

Gyre 29 begins with a stratified collection of cold-hued natural colors which systematically evolves into a disordered tangle of vortices and waves. A gyre is a circular or spiral motion or form, and the term usually refers to the largest-scale rotational motions of the Earth’s oceans. These structures, like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, are large and long-lived. The colors used allow the scene to be interpreted as either motions on the global ocean or the dynamic activity of waves in a seascape. Slow, ubiquitous motion accentuates the longevity of the gyre, and careful detail implies scale.

Smoke Water Fire

Smoke Water Fire is an experimental digital video. It shows a dynamic fluid-like structure contorting and tearing under the impacts of other fluid structures. The goal is to illustrate the essence of fluid motion—that which is most innately fluid, and which remains apparent when all other context is removed. The geometry was made with custom software, and was rendered with Radiance.

Stain 125_1c (excerpt)

When there exists no means to clean up a mess, a pretty little stain can turn into quite a problem. This video was made using a two-dimensional static flow field.

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July’s Leaders in Software and Art choices (a 60-min. loop), including works by Anne Spalter, Mark Stock, Kenji Williams, Eva Lee, and Asya Reznikov, will show on the Big Screen at the following times (schedule subject to change.  Please check schedule at http://bigscreenplaza.com before attending).