Under the Heat Dome2022

In late 2021 unusual cyclone activity in the Pacific, strengthened by rising water temperatures, triggered the formation of a "heat dome" which drifted across western Canada and the United States. Heat domes are areas of high pressure in the atmosphere which prevent the air beneath them from escaping, forcing rising hot air downwards and raising terrestrial temperatures to extremes.

Produced in collaboration with musician and composer Graham Van Pelt and influenced in mood and tone by alarming climate events, the music and the motion reflect each other, each beginning from a place of harmony and order, and deteriorating into certain chaos by way of pattern and repetition.

To create the videos, programmatic particle systems digest source images (such as archival photographs of glaciers) and subject them to forces akin to natural phenomena like wind or waves. The resulting abstract dance is reminiscent of data visualizations of meteorological events veering out of control.