processing   may, 2004   j.tarbell

200 x 200 pixels 42 circles 500 x 500 pixels 100 circles 1200 x 300 pixels 100 circles

The Intersection Aggregate is a fun visualization defining the relationships between objects with Casey Reas, William Ngan, and Robert Hodgin. Commissioned for display at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the version on this page is a slight modification of the original algorithm (it simply uses color). Casey suggests we write programs to visualize the same simple instructions: A surface filled with 100 medium to small sized circles. Each circle has a different size and direction, but moves at the same slow rate. Display: A. The instantaneous intersections of the circles. B. The aggregate intersections of the circles. 0000 Casey Reas 0001 Robert Hodgin 0002 William Ngan 0003 Jared Tarbell We were not allowed to see each other's programs until the end. In this way we found many surprises of similarities and dissimilarities between our implementations.

1000 region detail 1001 region detail 1002 region detail 1003 region detail 1004 region detail 1005 region detail

Circles move only horizontally. I intentionally kept the movement of the circles simple because the drawing technique was already so complex that the underlying structure was lost.

0000 intersection aggregate of 100 small to medium sized circles

5000 the instantaneous intersections of 100 circles

The Intersection Momentary is my implementation of part A of Casey's instructions.