For the First Time Since Thinking Began, a Thought has Crossed the Ocean in the Time it Took to Think it

How can algorithms be used to approximate the materiality of painting and be made to resemble a material system? This collection uses a path tracing algorithm to harness camera settings, lighting effects, and colour space as explicit compositional devices. By height-mapping the tonal regions of recursively generated images, uncertain landscapes and geological formations emerge from a promiscuity of processes. The strategy is exploratory: a geological survey of an abstract topography. The idea is not unlike a photographer trying to find her ideal framing. In these works the horizon is no longer a line but a negotiation. Perspective often becomes only a rumour. Planes drift and tilt, uncertain of their points of illumination. Objects mark the distance but their shadows are in disagreement. Geology and abstraction have been baked into a single codex. Artwork: @mrprudence 2025 | 4096 x 5461 PNG