Alpenglow

Lumen & Logic

A flat-vector skyline at sunset, in which colour is a function of altitude rather than of the building. Slide a ruler across the picture and every lit surface on the line is the same orange and every shaded one the same slate, whichever tower each belongs to: there are four gradients per depth, each spanning the whole skyline band, and every facade in the city is painted with one of them, so same-altitude-same-colour is not attempted but unavoidable. Both ramps end at the street, which fuses the bases of the whole cluster into one mass. The projection is a pure elevation with no receding face anywhere, so the narrow shaded band down a tower is one rectangle split off by a vertical cut rather than a second face, and depth is occlusion plus a mix toward the sky rather than a camera. Windows are a step off the same ramp, which is why they fade out at the street without anything fading them. Buildings are stacks of setback masses under a crown — flat, stepped, chamfered, spired, domed or notched — dressed in dot matrices, hairline banding, fluting, diagrids or panes on a window grid whose rows are global, so neighbouring towers line up. Still water below carries a squashed, detail-free reflection that fades out downward.

Medium

Generative algorithm, archival pigment print

Dimensions

60 × 90 cm