Landslide (2004)

“The only constant is movement and change.”

Landslide is a generative new media installation composed of a physical sandbox and real-time animation. At its core lies a custom algorithm written in C++, which simulates a dynamic, evolving topographic map. Unlike traditional maps that represent preserved moments of the past, this map generates the present - constantly shifting, never repeating.
Colored pixels begin as scattered data points that interact based on custom computational rules inspired by Game of Life and echoing the territorial logic of strategy games like Risk. Pixels change color until two neighboring pixels match-merging into new zones. Over time, shapes expand, shrink, and reform. The result is a series of evolving boundaries and color fields that form abstract topographies, conceptual maps in constant flux.
Each cycle concludes with a moment of visual “pause,” as two dominant colors stabilize in a temporary composition, only for the entire process to restart, entirely anew. Every loop is unique. There is no playback. The work exists only in the now.

Conceptually, Landslide reflects on socio-political structures, territorial shifts, and the impermanence of systems. It explores the instability of borders and the mutability of form, whether geographic, social, or emotional. The physical landscape of sand becomes a stage for algorithmic life, where form is continuously shaped by a machine intelligence following artist-defined rules.
This is a collaboration between human and machine: the artist writes the logic; the algorithm performs it, generating a living visual experience.