A Cidade Que Inventamos

"A Cidade Que Inventamos" is a pattern created with the Clojure Patterning library in 2022 at an artistic residency in Buinho Rural FabLab in Messejana, Alentejo in Portugal.

The pattern constructs a random city-scape from a number of tiles, some of which have their own internal variations. One of the quirks of the Patterning library is that grids are, by default, filled column-wise rather than row-wise. This naturally leads to creating a stylised city from vertical runs of tiles, leading to tall, narrow buildings that are somewhat inspired by the clock-tower and chimneys of Messejana.

Many uses of the pattern are intended to be static. I've laser-engraved it on wood tiles, game boards, and on "blank" panels for modular synthesisers. However, for this version on FX(hash) some slight dynamic variation has been introduced. The clocks show the current time. And the position and density of the people varies slightly with the time of day.

Multiple versions of this pattern can themselves be tiled together to make a yet larger city. The original exhibition featured a larger laser-engraved panel made of 5 x 4 smaller city-scape tiles.