https://preview.p5js.org/fleshcircuit/present/Xok_O0YsG
I started listening to vaporwave as I work after reading Roisin Kiberd’s The Disconnect: A Personal Journal Through the Internet. The sonic textures are evocative of an earlier era of digital culture, which I find matches the graphic elements of this sketch. Unlike a screensaver, however, traces of colors and forms are left in the semi-transparent backdrop. The swarm placement and colours of the rectangles change in relation to mouse position (or where a touchscreen is tapped), though I extended the swarm so that it is not clustered around the point, but retains a sense of individual autonomy. These graphics are sublimations of anxieties and feelings of (dis)connection over the past year, as the pandemic exasperates qualities of social isolation. The code for the rectangles is adapted from Generative Design and the swarm is a modification of the oscillating bodies code used in Ripple Snapper from the Nature of Code.