A point of laser light traces shifting paths across a rigid grid, staging a choreography where structure and perception remain in tension. Like shadows in the Allegory of the Cave, what appears as visible both reveals and conceals its underlying logic, inviting reflection on how mediated systems shape what is taken as reality.

Given the opportunity to create a laser projection, an 8 × 7 metal mesh triggered the will. A computer program was developed to guide a laser point through the 56 coordinates of the grid. Inspired by—but deliberately avoiding—classic algorithms such as random walk, Markov chains, Schöning’s algorithm, and graph connectivity methods, an original algorithm was designed to control the laser.

The algorithm articulates the real-time interaction of four oscillatory signals: two sawtooth oscillators and two sine wave oscillators. The sawtooth oscillators define the horizontal and vertical traversal of the laser point across the grid. Concurrently, two sine wave oscillators modulate this motion, expanding and contracting the range of visited coordinates.

Operating at shifting and independent frequencies, the four oscillators generate a field of evolving trajectories, producing a system that approaches infinite variation.

Computational audiovisual art, design, direction, production and video editing – André Rangel.
Camera operator – Francisco Castro Moura.