Floo

Floo is an interactive audiovisual environment constructed around a Navier-Stokes simulation of fluid flow. Users create synthetic sound and image by depositing a series of fluid sources across the terrain of the screen,and then steering a large quantity of particles through the flow field established by these singularities. An image is gradually built up from the luminescent trails left by the particles. The shapes of these trails are entirely a result of the forces originating from the users cursor and the fluid singularities. As the particles tread again and again over a given location, that spot becomes brighter and brighter.

In Floccus (the name is a Latin term for "hairball"), ductile filaments drawn by the user swirl around a shifting, imaginary drain centered at the user's cursor. These filaments--torn by conflicting impulses to simultaneously preserve their length, yet also move towards or away from the cursor-- find an equilibrium by forming gnarly, tangled masses.