Eman Arsham

Eman Arsham

Shaped By Input
This project explores how real-world data looks when mapped to a visual system, and what happens to that visual when the data changes. Temperature, wind speed, and air quality are each tied to specific visual properties across a series of generative systems built on live atmospheric conditions from cities around the world. The same code, fed different numbers, produces something completely different every time.

The process built deliberately from a single variable — temperature mapped to colour — so the relationship between input and output was immediately visible. Then wind speed was added, controlling motion. Then air quality, controlling density. Each phase made the connection more complex and more legible. That logic was then applied across a series of different visual systems, each exploring the same idea through a completely different form.

What became clear is that small shifts in data do a lot. A few degrees of temperature change moves an entire colour palette. A spike in air quality makes a composition feel heavier. Wind speed changes how fast and directional everything moves. The system is not making decisions about how things look. It only knows the numbers it is given.

Weather data was chosen because everyone already understands it. That familiarity kept the focus on what was being studied: how much a visual system can be shaped by what it is fed. The goal was never to illustrate data. It was to understand what data looks like when it is given control.