Mesocosm (Wink, Texas)
(2012)
Software-driven animation. 144-hour year-long cycle (never repeats).
Color, animation, sound
Format: Standalone software application on (intel) Mac with monitor / projection
Dimensions variable
Add'l animation: Michelle Mayer
Code Design: Veronique Brossier
Occasional Sound: Lem Jay Ignacio
Developed through a residency at Diverseworks, Houston, Texas
ANIMATION INSTRUCTIONS:
1.
You must have the latest version of Flash
Player to access the ANIMATION on the next page.
2. CLICK HERE TO START THE ANIMATION. IF YOU HAVE COOKIES
ENABLED, THE PIECE WILL REMEMBER WHAT MONTH/DAY YOU LEFT OFF WHEN YOU QUIT.
......................................................................CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE TO START THE
ANIMATION..............................................................
DESCRIPTION / ABOUT THE MESOCOSM
SERIES
Mesocosm (Wink, Texas) is part of an ongoing series of animated landscapes that develop and change
over time in response to software-driven data inputs. The title is drawn from the field of environmental
science and refers to experimental, simulated ecosystems, which allow for manipulation of the physical
environment and are used for biological, community, and ecological research (Kansas State University, Division of
Biology, Rainfall Manipulations Plots description). The animated elements are drawn
by hand, frame-by-frame, yet their choreographies are dynamic—not predetermined or canned—dictated by
constraints in real-time. Each of the works in Mesocosm is long in duration and recombines perpetually as
inputs determine order, density, and interrelationships. They are looped, and have no beginning or end.
Because change happens slowly, but can produce radical results over time, the works are intended to be seen in
public places where people gather or pass through frequently, or lived with like a painting—in living rooms
and meeting spaces.
Wink, Texas is the most recent landscape to be animated as part of this Mesocosm series. The
animation features a large sinkhole— the “Wink Sink 2,” located on private oil company property in
the small Texas town of Wink. This sinkhole has been widening steadily since it opened in 2002. In this
animation, it appears as a natural geological event, complete with picnic rest stop furnishings and a
billboard. In the background, oil refineries burn off gases in plumes, as an occasional train or coyote ambles
past. By day, the landscape is inhabited by a diversity of bird life, prairie dogs, insects, pronghorn
antelope, HazMat workers and—depending on the season—migrating monarch butterflies, snakes and sandhill
cranes. By night, the sinkhole boils, gushes, flows and expels objects: plastic bags, oil and dark clouds that
whirl out of the sinkhole’s vortex in a ghostly choreography.
INSTALLATION IMAGES:
PHOTOS: John Berens, Mark Francis
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