THAT THING YOU LET ASIDE DOES NOT LEAVE
Looming Emotion by Shaderism
Looming Emotion looks at the ways we keep busy to avoid what needs attention. The artwork borrows from glass: transparent, hard, and honest about whatever is placed behind it. Using Three.js, the piece builds a grid of tiles whose material properties change over time under layered noise fields. The result is imagery that feels abstract yet near-real, like architecture seen through rain. A sphere sits behind the lattice as a quiet stand-in for the unaddressed thing. Sometimes obvious, sometimes missing, always there.
Most of us carry something important that gets ignored. With Looming Emotion, I wanted to show what that looks like, the restless patterns of distraction, and the quiet presence of the thing we keep avoiding.
Shaderism
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
HABIT LOOP
The grid is comforting because it repeats. It also distracts. Tile by tile, the surface keeps you occupied with small changes while the sphere waits behind it. This is the habit loop made visible: busy foreground, unresolved background. The composition invites you to choose where to look and to notice how quickly attention prefers the moving pattern over the still thing that matters.
GLASS AS LANGUAGE
The artwork treats refraction as vocabulary. Refraction is how light bends when it passes through one material into another. Here, refraction and tint do the talking. Inspired by Tom Patti’s layered laminates and the organic restraint of fine wood carving, the tiles gain thickness, edge, and tone. The abstraction stays clean, yet the scene reads like reality: surfaces catch light, edges soften and depth accumulates.
NOISE THAT BEHAVES
Crafted using Three.js, this creation employs intricate noise motifs that interact with each other, resulting in a mesmerizing visual display. These patterns alter the material properties of a procedurally generated grid of tiles, imbuing each element with depth and variability.
SHAPE YOUR EXPERIENCE
A built-in menu allows you to choose how the work lives in your space. Slow the animation until it feels meditative, or push the speed until the surface vibrates. Toggle between still light or shifting illumination. Let the patterns flow endlessly, or pause them to hold a moment. With a single click, capture a screenshot, export a high-quality print, or record the motion as video. All this is fully on-chain, including the recording tool, and it’s rendered in your browser.
More about the artist
Shaderism
Algorithmic artist and creative developer, who uses web technologies to create real-time artwork, often incorporating aspects of audiovisuality, interactivity, and physics simulations, while exploring the themes of playfulness and self-reflection.
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