Molnár's Interruptions

Molnar translates the logic of Vera Molnár's Interruptions into a live browser field. Move the pointer across the grid and the rectangles begin to tilt, compress, and drift out of line.

Vera Molnár's Interruptions series matters because it shows how little an algorithm needs to do before order becomes expressive. The Morgan Library describes one 1968 drawing as one of the first works she produced with a computer, made from a program she wrote onto punch cards and printed on a plotter, with randomness deliberately included so that gaps would appear in the composition. The V&A's record places the 1969 plotter drawings among her earliest computer-generated images and notes that she kept slightly modifying the algorithm from one work to the next, using iteration to explore a family of possible results instead of settling on a single finished arrangement.

Molnár had already been thinking this way before she gained access to computer time. The V&A essay on her idea of the machine imaginaire describes how she used grids, constraints, permutations, and self-imposed procedures by hand, then carried that logic into code. The browser sketch puts Molnár's method into motion. A disciplined field gives deviation a narrow opening, testing how much disorder the rule can bear.

The code is almost absurdly compact. Every rectangle begins with a stable position, a slight base angle, and a random seed. The pointer then acts as a local disturbance field, raising the amount of deviation only for cells close enough to feel it:

const dx = mx - g.x, dy = my - g.y;
const dist = Math.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy);
const influence = Math.max(0, 1 - dist / radius);
const disruption = influence * influence;
const angle = g.baseAngle + disruption * (g.seed - 0.5) * Math.PI * 1.5;
const scale = 1 - disruption * 0.4 * g.seed;

That disruption value does nearly all the aesthetic work. Far from the pointer it falls to zero and the grid resumes its composure. Near the pointer it rises quadratically, so the deformation comes on softly and then suddenly feels decisive. Molnár's historical plotter drawings often made interruption visible through missing segments and carefully controlled breaks. This version translates interruption into motion. The grid keeps every piece as its certainty slips. That feels right to me because her art catches the exact moment a rational system begins to admit contingency.

Open the full artifact page or the quicker embedded gallery sketch. The piece's pleasure comes from watching the grid slip a little under a rule that clearly knows what it is doing.