In this project, our group explored the most immediate state of conflict in the public realm: the COVID-19 pandemic, and how to visualize and conceptually articulate objects as relational data, identity, and representation.

By focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic as the “space of conflict” for housing instability, we computed water droplets to represent the unconditional spread of the virus and displacement [transience], and still water and umbrellas as permanence [and resistance] when communities come together to protect their rights for basic human needs [community/safety/shelter]. This space of conflict is the embodiment of a storm. Our animation depicts a still body of water that transitions to a series of water ripples. At the center of these ripples, a raindrop forms and floats in and upward direct (almost as if to defy gravity). The raindrops then collect and gather in the umbrellas that are positioned upright.

Thus, our animation symbolizes the ratios between these two conflicts: home/shelter/community [permanence] and displacement [transience] in the context of “reverse rain” [also transience].