Pixel sorting and pixel displacement aren’t new ideas, but once I started to experiment in the medium I fell in love. The abstract and almost impressionistic images that I’ve seen drew me in and I decided to make my own experiments with the medium. As with all of my 3D work, a lot of the design process is driven by experimentation and happy accident, but I ended up developing a good method for achieving results which excited me.

Initially I was mainly working with pixel displacement in a 3D space because that is what I’m most familiar with. However, over time I started to play around with looks that felt more two dimensional even though its not what I usually work with.

As I started to explore the 2D space more, I decided I wanted to delve into the Pixel Sorting technique. I was able to achieve some fun effects, but with my limited knowledge of the Processing programming language I wasn’t able to really create the compositions I wanted. After some experimentation I realized I could take some of my basic pixel sorted images and alter them further to achieve a really textured look that I was happy with.

Once I had gotten familiar enough with the techniques I wanted to see how I could combine them with my standard 3D artwork. I used my Superstate composition was able to produce some fun results. You can see one of the images I created below. I also experimented with how pixelsorting can be animated. Though it was an extremely cumbersome process, I was able make a fun short animation.