C-D [ - 001 -]
installations
01/12/2025
WORLD
Counterfactual Dunes is one of three works in the Topographic Report of Synthetic Horizon collection. Conceived as a large-scale immersive projection, the installation is an ode to the generative intelligence of desert landscapes, revealing how form emerges from the continuous negotiation between wind and matter. Within a virtual environment, it emulates the geomorphological processes of dune formation, translating erosion and accumulation into a time-based, spatial experience.
Here the landscape becomes a living material, continuously written and rewritten by the interaction of natural forces. Grounded in fluid dynamics and granular physics, the simulation yields formations that are physically plausible yet naturally impossible. Dunes are shaped by wind regimes that could never coexist, and topographies assemble into temporary equilibria before slipping, collapsing, and reforming. By compressing geological time into a scale human attention can hold, the work renders dune genesis, migration, and dissolution legible as a continuous, present tense event.
Algorithm breakdown
The simulation is driven by a simplified model built on two assumptions. First, when wind hits a sand particle on the surface, it launches the particle in the reflected wind direction relative to the local surface normal. Second, once airborne, the particle follows a ballistic path under gravity and drag until it intersects the surface again, which defines its landing point.
Solver statement
Given a surface point P, local wind W, and surface normal N, the solver outputs the initial sand particle trajectory direction E and the corresponding landing point L.
Axiom 1
E is the initial trajectory direction of the sand particle at P, defined by reflecting the wind direction W about the local surface normal N.
Axiom 2
Given P and initial direction E with an assigned launch speed, the landing point L is the first surface intersection of the particle’s ballistic trajectory under gravity and drag.
Credits
Project developed as part of the Mazra’ah Media Arts Residency 2025
Project Coordinator - Dr. Tegan Bristow
Exhibition space - Diriyah Art futures KSA
Development - InDialog
Production assistant - Abdullah Al Minawi
Production director - Gavan Eckhart