New York branding and design studio Trollbäck + Company created the opening sequence for the 2012 World Science Festival, an annual event that celebrates the exploration of sciences. (It’s the fourth year that T + Co has collaborated with the Science Festival Foundation.)

Inspired by math and nature, and after studying the work of mathematicians like Alan Turing, the team found such beauty in the visual representations and generative formulas of mathematics that it abandoned traditional animation software and instead wrote lines of code. The result is a mesmerizing visualization of the algorithms over time.

Programmed using C++, the data that drives the sequence shows the interpretation of science describing nature. An otherwise unconventional approach to animation, the process allowed the team to study an incredible amount of animated visuals as the algorithms created thousands of variations. Once the sequences were selected, the data that creates the imagery was overlaid on the visuals. The piece was finalized with a track by Michael Montes.