p5.js - expiation

 

 

 

 

 

We live in the age of information. Surrounded by polished images and seamless data, we move like flawless signals, pretending to be perfect pixels within an orderly digital world. We strive to be precise, streamlined, clean. But are we really? Are the images we see truly free of stain?

The order we see on the screen often erases traces of emotion. In the uniformity of pixels and colors, in the repetitive flow of frames, our inner chaos, guilt, and flaws seem to vanish. Yet behind that sheen lies a quiet mess. the sins and feelings we carry but no longer notice. This project began with that contradiction. Are we really living like pure, neutral pixels? Or are we simply cloaking ourselves in images while dragging our imperfections just below the surface?

This work, built with p5.js, takes user-input GIFs and images and translates them into ASCII characters in real time. At first, they appear as simple symbols, ordered and abstract. But over time, emotion seeps in. Based on pixel brightness, those characters begin to shift, replaced by red-tinted Chinese characters representing the seven deadly sins: 傲 (Pride), 嫉 (Envy), 怒 (Wrath), 懶 (Sloth), 貪 (Greed), 暴 (Gluttony), 色 (Lust). What once looked like neutral code slowly becomes a confession. Movement transforms from looped animation to a growing landscape of guilt. The ASCII characters become not just visual markers, but emotional residue, and the entire sequence is captured and preserved as a moving testimony.

 

 

 

https://editor.p5js.org/rladbtls100/full/5kqKMUkIG 

p5.js Web Editor