Yield

Video Photo Info
Yield is a generative artwork that responds to the commodity market. The name and value of different commodities cycle through the animation, and slide up and down the screen as their values climb or drop in real time. The animations take on shapes that are reminiscent of the commodities they represent. For example, agricultural products such as wheat, orange juice or cocoa have spouting forms that imitate shoots coming out of the ground. Crude oil takes on a a gushing form, while natural gas has a wave-like animation.


Commodities are either grown or mined, and for this reason, are specially connected to our planet’s resources. In our digital age, we are becoming increasingly disconnected from the Earth, even though we continue to depend on it for food and energy. By turning the commodity market into an algorithmic artwork, Yield attempts to move beyond the traditional representations of data and create a more poetic relationship with the information that surrounds us. It also attempts to ground this data to the real sources of energy that we extract from the planet. 

4K screen, generative custom software, computer.