I began 2026 by slowing down a little, being more intentional about giving my brain space to reset. Reading more, spending time outdoors, and consciously reducing my screen and internet time.
Somewhere in that shift, the idea for this project came to mind. I kept coming back to a question that’s been sitting with me for years: how humans are actually woven into nature. Not metaphorically, but structurally. Through rhythm, repetition, and patterns, the same systems that show up in ecosystems, tides, breath, pulses, migration, and growth.
That question has slowly evolved into the beginning of an interactive project. At its core, the project focuses on the shared rhythms and visual structures between human systems and the natural world, expressed through a merging of cinematic storytelling with sensory and research-based elements.
So far, I have been researching artists who work on similar themes and media. I have also been spending time outdoors, capturing patterns in soft clay or in the traditional way, by tracing them with charcoal. This practice is allowing me to visualise my project and work towards defining a visual language. For some enhanced experiments, I converted the patterns into TouchDesigner visuals in order to experiment and expand more.
In the coming months, I plan on collaborating with other creative technologists, storyboard artists, and sound designers to develop this project further.
Digital scan of tracing paper with highlighted patterns
Digital print of the patterns that were scanned and manipulated on photoshop
A chDesigner experiment to convert the 2D pattern sketches into a motion graphic
BTS of tracing patterns to capture them on the paper
© Marium Jamal, 2026. All rights reserved.