Rationale (2002)

Kate Southworth & Patrick Simons as Glorious Ninth

Still Image from Rationale, 2002. Generative Visuals by Kate Southworth. Interactive on Cursor Click.

Rationale is a generative and interactive visual work and a linear sound piece intended to be shown in a gallery context. It consists of interactive generative visuals that require user input to trigger transformations and changes, and linear non-looped music (7:57). The music begins slowly and builds into an almost unbearable frenzy.  The visuals, in contrast, are very slow as they trace the shift in shared tempos between the dying and the living.  The visual piece moves between awkward spluttering exchanges and slow, organic change.  Through some small input from the audience/participant patterns are woven as the visual elements come into contact with each other and leave behind trails of their existence. The participant has no impact on the micro changes that translate the scanned foliage in the background of the screen from raw material to an abstract organic pattern.  This is death.  The user looks on: affected but unknowing.  The music ends.  It must.  The visuals cruelly continue to mutate and transform.