Mark J. Stock

Statement

All of my work depicts imaginary scenes that derive their complexity from the deceptively simple behavior of large numbers of independent actors/agents/particles/elements. The rules governing the action of each element are often based on primary natural and physical forces and can be described in a single mathematical statement or a few lines of code. Alone, each element emits a trivial and boring solution, like a single star floating motionless in space. Together, though, these elements create massively-complex galaxies of shapes and forms inspired by, and reflecting, the natural origin of their rules. This is the way of computational science: to break complex, real problems up into many smaller and easily solvable problems such that the ensemble predicts the behavior of the real system. That was my education, and it is now the source of my artwork.

Artworks

Green Flow is a digitally-created image of a dark green watery fluid seeping over an invisible landscape. A fluid simulation in vorticity variables created the divergence-free velocity field, this velocity field is held static as it convects a scalar tracker with very low mass diffusivity. The resulting highly-detailed density field exhibits a myriad of natural fluid-like forms and textures at multiple scales.