Drift
Hundreds of motes follow an invisible current, each leaving a fading trail, so the flow slowly draws itself. The cursor pulls them in passing.
Focus
Behaviour you can see only by its trace.
Medium
Canvas 2D
Duration
Ongoing
Last updated
June 2026
Each speck above is following a flow field you cannot see directly — only the trails make it visible. Move your cursor and the nearby motes lean toward it, warm to the accent, then rejoin the current.
Why this
one.
You rarely get to see a system's behaviour head-on. You see its traces — where attention went, what kept getting revisited, which paths wore smooth. Reading those traces well is most of diagnosis. This is that idea with nothing attached: an invisible rule, made legible only by the marks it leaves.
How it
works.
Plain Canvas 2D — no library. A few hundred particles each read a small value-noise field to choose a heading, step forward, and draw a short segment; the whole canvas is washed with a sliver of the paper colour every frame, so old marks fade and only the living flow stays bright. The cursor adds a local attraction that falls off with distance.