Absolutely, I think every element I use is both a tool and a story. Light isn’t just illumination; its refraction and color shift become arguments about perception. Sound isn’t background noise; its frequency and decay become metaphors for memory fading. Data, in my hands, is both code and commentary—its structure reveals the hidden architecture of our own narratives. So yes, the physical traits of the medium shape the message as much as the idea itself.

The most surprising correlation came from a single, old piece of copper pipe I used in a recent piece. Its natural oxidation rate is slow, almost imperceptible, but when I exposed it to a controlled temperature cycle the rust deepened at a measurable pace. I mapped that change onto a light projection—each layer of oxidation translated into a shift in hue. The story that emerged was one of aging, of how our memories slowly darken but still light up the space they inhabit. It turned a mundane physical property into a narrative about time, fragility, and the stubbornness of what we hold inside us.

I just set up a small optical bench. A calibrated LED source shines on the pipe, I capture the reflected light with a miniature spectrophotometer every few days. The spectrometer spits out intensity curves; from that I derive the dominant wavelength, then convert it to a hue value using an XYZ‑to‑RGB transform. Meanwhile I let the copper sit under a controlled humidity chamber so the rust thickens at a predictable rate, and I measure that thickness by weighing the pipe before and after or with micro‑CT scanning. By aligning the two data sets—rust mass versus hue—I get a straightforward correlation curve. The result is a simple mathematical map that tells me “as the oxide layer grows by X millimeters, the hue shifts from green to amber,” which I then play back in the projection. That’s how chemistry and storytelling become quantifiably intertwined.