Quark -- Studies in Color and Motion
Posted by Mark at January 27, 2005 01:11 PM
I have posted screenshots from a generative piece I've worked on over the past two years. The piece is titled "Quark" after the physics particle by the same name.
In particle physics, the quark is considered a fundamental particle, a building block of the larger particles, such as protons and neutrons, that make up all matter. Three "strong charges" are associated with quarks and are labeled by physicists with the colors red, green and blue, in analogy with the three primary colours, red, green and blue that make white light.
The story goes that Murray Gell-Mann (the physicist who discovered quarks) took the name "quark" from a line in James Joyce's 'Finnegan's Wake': "three quarks for Muster Mark". The line suggested the name to the physicist because the quarks appeared in sets of three within protons.
In these pieces the chaotic motion of three particles generate red, green and blue values. The motion of the particles translates into shifting colors and over time creates a varied space filled with spiralling forms. These images are from four versions of Quark, each with a different tuning to the motion and color values.
The Quark series is based on code from to the physics engine in this demo
Special thanks to Creative Capital and the Alternative Museum for funding that led to the development of these pieces, and to Josh Nimoy for the OpenGL kick-start.
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