The Conductor — Invisible Hand

Concept & Inspiration :

For this project, I was inspired by Memo Akten’s “Simple Harmonic Motion #12 for 16 Percussionists.” In that piece, 16 performers stand on stage, and each one receives instructions from a computer through their earpiece when to step forward, when to hit their drum, and when to turn on their flashlight. They don’t know what the bigger picture looks like. They just follow their own simple instructions. But when you watch all 16 of them together, something beautiful and complex emerges.

I wanted to translate that idea into a visual sketch. Instead of real performers, I have 16 glowing nodes arranged in a circle. Instead of a computer sending cues through earpieces, I have an invisible point, “the conductor,” that orbits around them. When it gets close to a node, that node lights up. The conductor’s path starts clean and orderly, then gradually becomes chaotic and unpredictable, then returns to order. And the viewer can use their mouse to become a second conductor, creating a tension between human control and machine control.

 

Code I’m Proud Of:

getActivation() method from the Shockwave class:

getActivation(nodeX, nodeY) {
    let d = dist(this.x, this.y, nodeX, nodeY);
    let distFromWave = abs(d - this.radius);

    if (distFromWave < this.activationWidth) {
      return map(distFromWave, 0, this.activationWidth, 1, 0);
    }
    return 0;
  }

What this does is pretty simple: it checks how far a node is from the wave’s current edge. If the node is within the wave’s “thickness” (60 pixels), it gets activated stronger if it’s right on the edge, weaker if it’s at the boundary. If it’s outside that band, nothing happens. So when you click, the ring expands outward and each node lights up only when the wave actually reaches it, not all at once. That one small function is what makes the whole click interaction feel like dropping a stone in water instead of just flipping a switch.

Milestones and Challenges

Stage 1: Circle of 16 Nodes. I placed 16 nodes evenly around a circle using cos() and sin(). The main challenge was getting the spacing right and making the glow effect look soft instead of harsh.

Stage 2: The Invisible Conductor I added an invisible point that orbits the circle and activates nearby nodes based on distance. The tricky part was making the activation smooth without lerp(), the nodes just snapped on and off like a light switch, which looked bad.

Stage 3: Hit Flashes and Ripples. When a node reaches peak activation, it now flashes bright and sends out a ripple ring. The challenge was making sure the hit only fires once per pass, not every single frame while the conductor is nearby. I solved this with a simple flag called wasAboveThreshold.

Stage 4: Order to Chaos to Order. This is where it got interesting. I made the conductor’s path morph between a circle, a figure-8, and random noise over a 35-second cycle. Getting the blending right took some trial and error at first; the transitions were too sudden, and it looked glitchy instead of smooth.

Embedded Sketch

Stage 5:Polish and Mouse Interactivity I added connection lines between nodes, a center glow, film grain, and mouse interactivity. The mouse acts as a second conductor with a smaller reach (so you can only affect a few nodes at a time). Clicking sends a shockwave. The biggest challenge here was combining three different activation sources (machine, mouse, and shockwave) without them conflicting with each other.

Reflection

This project taught me a lot about how simple rules can create complex-looking behavior. Each node only knows one thing: how far it is from the conductor, but when you watch all 16 together, it looks like something alive. That’s basically the same idea behind Akten’s original piece, and I think that’s what makes it so powerful. If I had more time, I’d love to add sound, maybe a soft tone or drum hit when each node gets activated, so it feels more like an actual performance. I’d also like to try it with more nodes (maybe 32 or 64) to see how the patterns change. Another idea is to let the viewer switch between order and chaos manually using a key press, so they have even more control over the composition.