Uncertain Associations, Interactive Installation
Uncertain Associations is an interactive installation that depicts cycles of growth and decay of urban structures within a continually changing ecosystem. Endlessly shifting visualizations and sounds evoke a wide range of experiences to consider the web of relationships between humans and natural systems.
As viewers navigate through the gallery space, buildings are created in the associated virtual space, and persist as long as viewers remain present. Each structure is visually unique and emanates a different musical tone, producing a range of harmonious or dissonant chords. As structures rise from clearings in vegetation, they remain until they are abandoned and eventually disintegrate back into the landscape. A virtual ecosystem evolves from approximations of natural processes that simulate adaptive cycles of collapse and renewal.
Uncertain Associations produces a meditative space to foster nuanced thinking about our cultural relationships to nature. A wide range of present realities and potential futures may exist within this imaginative space, reinforced by a dynamic soundscape that reflects the state of the simulation. Computer hardware that runs this installation is exposed to viewers, foregrounding generative processes that are integral to this real-time simulation. A small screen displays procedural poetry to further reflect a range of overlapping relationships between industrial societies and forest ecosystems.