Genesis

- 2020

Project Type | Music Video
Client | Self-Initiated

Credits :
Visual Design & Programming | Ke Jyun Wu

Genesis started with a question that felt almost disrespectful at first: what would a classical sculpture look like if it was rebuilt from code?

I took traditional artworks, sculptures and paintings from different periods and styles, and deconstructed them through purely mathematical processes. Tessellation maps break the surface into fragments. Voronoi algorithms redistribute the geometry into intricate organic patterns. The forms stay recognizable, but the material feels like it belongs to a different century. Every crack, every new edge is driven by math, not by hand.

This was one of the earliest moments I understood what I actually wanted to do as an artist: take something everyone already knows, something already seen and catalogued and studied, and make it feel unfamiliar again. The same impulse that would later drive the entire Digiscape series was already here, just pointed at art history instead of nature.

Five years after making this piece, I visited the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and finally stood in front of some of the originals. It was a strange feeling, seeing the source material in person after spending so long deconstructing it on screen.

Visitor in front of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's bronze Ugolino and His Sons at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Still from Genesis: a dark sculpture of a seated figure emerging from shadow
Still from Genesis: a reclining marble figure lit from above
Still from Genesis: the seated sculpture pierced by fine light lines
Still from Genesis: marble figures in a pool of light
Still from Genesis: a sculpture breaking into a web of Voronoi cells
Still from Genesis: fragments of a sculpture drifting among shards
Still from Genesis: a sculpture stretched into streaks of light
Still from Genesis: the seated sculpture shattering on a dark floor
Still from Genesis: shards bursting from a sculpture
Still from Genesis: a blinding white light through a carved frame
Still from Genesis: light rays exploding over a field of fragments
Still from Genesis: rays of light sweeping across a carved wall
Still from Genesis: folds of drapery dissolving into lace patterns
Still from Genesis: draped forms covered in Voronoi lace
Still from Genesis: a draped figure fading into darkness
Still from Genesis: three copies of a saint statue in tall frames
Still from Genesis: tilted frames of baroque sculptures
Still from Genesis: lace shadows across a stone floor
Still from Genesis: carved rings and a sculpture on a textured floor
Still from Genesis: light through lace patterns falling on a seated sculpture
Still from Genesis: a sculpture beside a wall of lace light
Still from Genesis: sunbeams through a patterned screen onto a sculpture
Still from Genesis: sculpted figures lit by a bright patterned window
Still from Genesis: a sculpture on a pedestal between patterned light walls

Behind the Scene

Tessellation / Basic Map

Normal map texture used for tessellation in Genesis
Grey height map texture used for tessellation in Genesis
Geometric tile texture used as a base map in Genesis
Comparison render with tessellation off
Comparison render with tessellation on

Voronoi Algorithm

Diagram of the Voronoi pipeline turning a statue image into a cell sculpture
Steps of the Voronoi process: Voronoi cells, borders, distance, entropy filter and Poisson disc sampling
Node network of the Voronoi system in the software editor
Statue layers arranged in 3D space in the editor
Editor view of the particle and camera setup for GenesisEditor view of a sculpture point cloud with the render previewEditor view of the lace light scene with the render preview
Baroque statue rebuilt from white Voronoi cells, Genesis
Sculpture of embracing figures rendered as a Voronoi lattice, Genesis
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