The irresistible instability of being

Writing software codes is an art form, at least in the figurative sense of the result. Jonathan McCabe shows us with "Flowpi", an exhibition of psychedelic landscapes in constant evolution at Fach and Asendorf Gallery.

They’re called "generative mechanisms" and thanks to Jonathan McCabe they now rhyme with "information technology" and "psychedelia", two worlds that you normally wouldn’t consider side by side. But Jonathan did, blending two algorithms in one single software.

The first is a flow of two-dimensional compressible fluids that mixes colors but also generates figures with sharp edges where there is a shock front.

The second is a process of differentiation based on Turing's principle of instability, which produces colored lines and dots as well as acting as a catalyzer of motion on the fluid.

To look at them is a bit like discovering the expanding Universe through a powerful telescope, or staring at an instable marine abyss, or a world that becomes visible only thanks to a microscope.

Systems governed by generative mechanisms, thanks to which numerous living organisms can organize into ordered structures on various scales, like flocks of birds or planets in the solar system.

McCabe’s experiment thus manages to address a delicate and mysterious scientific subject that has been the object of numerous studies and debates from a unique, graphically kaleidoscopic point of view.















Photos via jonathanmccabe.com