Projecting
Projecting#
This piece started from a simple image: a sphere with a small flame at its center, and windows scattered across the surface. Each window is different. Some are open, some are barred, some are bricked shut. The viewer watches the sphere rotate, then zooms into a window and sees the flame through whatever filter that window imposes.
View fullscreen — restart for a different set of windows
The Idea#
We all have something at our core — call it a soul, a self, an inner light. But no one ever sees it directly. They see it through windows, and we choose (or don’t choose) which windows to show. Some of those windows are honest. An open window lets the flame through clearly, and that feels vulnerable. A frosted window is gentler — you can sense the warmth without the detail.
But some windows are performances. A polished window looks perfect, reflecting a gleam that has nothing to do with the actual flame. A painted window shows a landscape that isn’t even real — a scene we want people to see instead of what’s actually inside. A gilded window frames the flame like a museum piece, curated and controlled.
And some windows are defenses. Bars, shutters, curtains, armor plating. A bricked window says: there is nothing here. A hollow wall says: there was never a window at all.
The piece cycles through these windows randomly. Each restart shuffles the order, so you never see the same sequence twice. I like that the viewer can’t predict which window comes next — just like in life, you don’t always know which version of a person you’re about to encounter.
The Windows#
There are 32 windows in total. A few that I find particularly interesting:
Painted — A pleasant landscape is painted directly on the glass. Behind it, the real flame is almost invisible. This is the window of someone who has constructed an entire false front. You see rolling hills and a sunset, not the fire underneath.
Measured — The left half is clear glass, the right half frosted. A precise, controlled amount of visibility. This is the window of someone who has decided exactly how much of themselves to reveal and will not deviate.
Hollow — There is no window. Just rough stone wall. Not even the pretense of an opening. The faintest warm spot on the stone is the only hint that something once existed here.
Bright — The opposite extreme. The flame is tripled, blazing, with lens flares. Almost too much. This is the window of someone showing everything, whether you asked for it or not.
Display — A spotlight, a pedestal, a velvet rope. The flame is real but staged. It has been turned into a performance, an exhibit for others to admire at a safe distance.
Building It#
Like Inner Landscape, this is a single HTML file with zero dependencies — Canvas 2D and vanilla JavaScript. The sphere uses Fibonacci distribution to place 32 windows evenly on its surface, then projects them to 2D with a simple perspective divide. A gentle vertical wobble on the rotation gives the sphere a more organic feel.
Each window is its own render function. Some are simple (barred is just rectangles over the flame), some are involved (boarded has individually tilted planks with wood grain, nails, and light bleeding through gaps). The arch-shaped window frame clips all the interior rendering, so each effect is self-contained.
The animation shows four windows per 48-second cycle. With 32 windows and random shuffling, you’d need to watch for several minutes to see them all — or just keep hitting restart.