Juniregen in Friedrichshain is a creative coding audio and motion-reactive multimedia video that transforms a summer thunderstorm into a dynamic meditation on ecosystems, ecological rhythms, and urban transformation. The piece reimagines rain not only as a meteorological event but as a visual symphony of chromatic pulses that echo the earth’s systemic patterns and natural cycles—oscillations that shape both wilderness and city. In June 2019, on a hot summer day in Berlin, a thunderstorm swept through Friedrichshain, momentarily overwhelming the city's concrete infrastructure with the sheer force of nature. The sky fractured with thunder; clouds billowed like topographic reliefs, and rain fell in thick vertical textures, washing over asphalt, steel, and glass. This audiovisual work captures that moment through generative visuals—each responding and changing in real-time to the acoustic fingerprints of the storm and layered field recordings. Through vibrant yet fleeting color palettes drawn from organic references—lichen greens, storm-cloud purples, rust-soil oranges, and rain-slick grays—the video paints an emotional landscape that parallels the ecologies hidden within the urban grid. These chromatic choices suggest layers of biological life coexisting with synthetic surfaces, each vying for space and attention. The saturation levels and hue transitions mimic the adaptive responses of natural systems under stress—from sudden rain nourishing drought-ridden roots to the flushing of heavy metals and pollutants from city streets into overburdened waterways. By fusing sound-reactive visuals with data-driven rhythms, the work nods to landscape architecture as a living matrix—an ever-responsive fabric that mediates between human activity and the shifting climates of the Anthropocene. Juniregen in Friedrichshain considers how the built environment might learn from natural infrastructures—root systems, mycelial webs, migratory paths—and asks what urban design might look like if it surrendered to the logic of rain, rot, and rebirth. The thunderstorm becomes an equalizer, a non-human choreography that temporarily halts capitalism’s cadence. Social roles, consumer identities, and hierarchical systems dissolve into the shared moment of rainfall—an environmental reset where the city is reclaimed by the wilderness. In this work, pollution is both a presence and a phantom—dispersed by the rain but haunting in its traces. Like W. Cronon's reflection on wilderness, the piece invites us into a temporary illusion: a space where we remember our entanglement with the natural world, even in the heart of a polluted, constructed landscape. Duration: 00:05:00 (five minutes)

“Wilderness offers us the illusion that we can escape the cares and troubles of the world in which our past has ensnared us.” -W. Cronon

Exhibition Opening:
June 8th, 2023
Counterforce Lab, Los Angeles, CA