Earthquake Preparedness (
Lift Yr. Skinny Fists
Like Antennas to Heaven )
by Chris Eugene Mills
2016, remastered 2023
// ===================================
When the weight of an unattainable city skyline is pressed upon a person, it becomes a wall.
This project was the beginning of my experimentation with digital painting and orthographic '2.5D' layout. I had been doing moiré line studies for a year or two by this point, but a meme of Windows XP's famous window painting glitch, some exploration of hand-drawing in this early-gaming isometric layout, and an ongoing penchant to collect floorplans from architecture blogs on Tumblr led to this tonal study. Likely made after a revelatory WALLPAPERS exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, giving lift to my mind toward the feasibility of a digital art practice.
Earthquake Preparedness was previously exhibited at 'untitled' art space and the City Hall Skytrain Station in Vancouver in 2016.
// Guide // ==========================
It's wallpaper, or a screensaver, no qualms about it. Some iterations of this work are quite slow, but please allow the cityscape to evolve. Meant to be displayed in landscape 16:9, and fullscreen. Scales to high DPI displays.
There's a very rare "Zoning: Undeveloped" feature which looks like a bug, but it's not :D
Tested on Chrome 116, Firefox 117.
// Keyboard Interaction // ===========
press [s] = save a PNG screenshot
press [g] = save a 5sec GIF
hold [t] = TURBO BUTTON
press [r] = restart with same seed
press [n] = restart anew
press [1-6] = adjust DPI and restart
(1920x1080 - 11520x6480)
// URL Parameters // =================
[scale] = float, DPI (adaptive)
[preload] = 0/1, loading screen (true)
[build] = integer, buildings in preload (100)