Current Rothko: A Digital Weather-to-Painting Experiment by Joonas Virtanen
Designer Joonas Virtanen has created "Current Rothko," a website that matches Mark Rothko's color field paintings to real-time weather conditions anywhere in the world. The algorithm draws from a catalogue of 89 Rothko works, each tagged with color register, brightness, temperature, and mood. Users type in a location and receive a Rothko painting representative of the current weather there. Virtanen sourced images from WikiArt, WikiMedia, and fair-use databases from institutions like the National Gallery of Art, MoMA, and Tate. Due to copyright restrictions (artworks enter public domain after 95 years), only small previews are displayed. The project is a work in progress; details like dimensions and medium are not yet included. Virtanen also created "Plein Air," another weather visualizer, and "Tangled Lines," a New York City subway status tool.
Key facts
- Joonas Virtanen created Current Rothko, a website matching Rothko paintings to weather.
- The algorithm uses 89 Rothko paintings tagged with color, brightness, temperature, and mood.
- Users input any location to get a Rothko painting reflecting current weather.
- Images sourced from WikiArt, WikiMedia, and fair-use databases from NGA, MoMA, Tate.
- Rothko's work remains copyrighted; only small previews are shown.
- The project is a work in progress, lacking dimensions and medium details.
- Virtanen also made Plein Air weather visualizer and Tangled Lines subway tool.
- Rothko's color field paintings are characterized by total abstraction and large scale.
Entities
Artists
- Mark Rothko
- Barnett Newman
- Clyfford Still
- Josef Albers
- Joonas Virtanen
Institutions
- National Gallery of Art
- MoMA
- Tate
- Rothko Chapel
- WikiArt
- WikiMedia
- Colossal
Locations
- Houston
- New York City
- Chicago
- Kyoto
- Portland
- United States
- Japan