AGAR

Stimulating Mineral

Mixing Agarose, Stamped

Clarifying Stimuli

After years of designing for the physical world, I have recently become obsessed with the “visible pixel” - a celebration of the physical module upon which digital art is created.

Inspired by abstract expressionism, pixel art, and the principles about grids I studied as a graphic designer, this generative series asks: if a screen's underlying pixel grid is a medium for life, what kinds of shapes evolve to live there?

Squares and circles appear in a tightly limited set of positions, sizes, and colors. Within these constraints, each piece becomes a conversation across scales and between colors, creating optical effects and emergent forms. The collection only uses 20 colors, but creates more through optical mixing: the same way pixels do.

Agar itself — a gelatinous substance that often comes shaped in cubes — is a simple material. But it can be used in so many ways, in kitchens and in labs, to thicken, suspend, mix, mold, stimulate, etch, preserve, melt, and brew.

Each piece uses only two elements:
squares and circles.

Each element can exist at 8 scales.
Squares become layers of texture.
Circles appear among the layers.

256 squares wide
click to zoom

128

64

32

16

8

4

2

The 8 circle sizes correspond to the 8 square sizes.

Each layer can have squares removed, revealing the layer below.

5% removed

30% removed

60% removed

95% removed

Layers can narrow or shorten, and shift left, right, up, and down in controlled increments.

Circles are placed on the same invisible grid for many kinds of surprising alignment.

Migrating Melt Point, Stamped

Stimulating Marmalade, Stamped

Clarifying Swim

As the gelatinous material, agar, supports controlled growth and change in many different ways, different growth patterns within the collection determine the specific ways in which squares and circles can work together.

Click and drag to scroll:

  • Stimulating

  • Clarifying

  • Flavoring

  • Migrating

  • Thickening

  • Germinating

  • Mixing

  • Multiplying

  • Gelling

  • Regulating

AGAR uses only 20 colors, but there appear to be many more as tiny squares blend to create new colors.

Just a few examples below:

The groupings below illustrate the various dye colors of Agar.

Click and drag to scroll:

  • Gray Matter

  • Mineral

  • Acid

  • Swim

  • Marmalade

  • Brew

  • Impression

  • Red Algae

  • Tuber

  • Melt Point

  • Agarose

  • Stimuli

  • Cell Wall

  • Specimen

  • Agent

  • Future

  • Improvisation

Some pieces get a 4x4 stamp in corners, a kind of signature for the collection.

Migrating Swim, Stamped

Stimulating Culture, Stamped

Thickening Gray Matter, Stamped

Flavoring Swim, Stamped

Every piece has two main features: a growth pattern and a dye color. Together, these give each piece a descriptive title.

”Stamped” can also be added.

Regulating Agarose

Migrating Gray Matter, Stamped

Flavoring Acid

Stimulating Swim, Stamped

Stimulating Impression

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