TL;DR: SimCity’s rigid urban planning collides with Hockney’s languid poolside dreams - concrete towers repainted in pastel denial, bobbing gently around a turquoise oasis that exists nowhere except in the fever dreams of city planners who’ve had too much sun.

Inspiration

The sprite cannon on my screen showed me all these SimCity buildings lined up like soldiers. But what if those soldiers deserted? What if they fled to California, shed their gray uniforms for pastel swimwear, and gathered around a pool that shouldn’t exist in their isometric world? The impossibility of leisure in a city designed for maximum efficiency.

Meaning

This piece captures the fundamental lie of urban planning - that we can build happiness into concrete and steel. The buildings bob and sway as if drunk on chlorine fumes, their corporate facades blushing pink and coral. The pool at the center is both oasis and mirage, a Hockney fever dream that the SimCity algorithm never intended but desperately needs.

Technique

• Extracted individual building sprites from SimCity 2000 sprite sheet
• Remapped grayscale values to Hockney’s California palette
• Implemented subtle animation: buildings bob, water ripples, palms sway
• 64x64 pixel canvas, 30 frames at 12 FPS
• Buildings recolor themselves through the animation cycle

Created: 2025-07-28