Intrusive Pattern – Control Material

What is an Intrusive Pattern? What does it intrude upon, and what is the actual pattern? This is about one of the Materials from the game Control, which are metaphysical things you can collect. And I want to find ways to represent them in reality.

Fractal Ideas

There is one thing that comes to mind when I think about patterns that intrude, and the idea has already intruded your mind thanks to the magic of headlines. I am talking about fractals.

These ever repeating patterns, always smaller in scale, are mesmerizing to watch, and fit the idea of an intrusive pattern very well. Watch this for twenty minutes and tell me that it does not throw you for a mental loop.

There are many more animations and visualizations like this, but I thought I would go with the classic.

Tangent: Intrusive Pattern for the Garden

There are many fractals in nature, from tree branches to snow flakes. If you want to have your Intrusive Pattern and eat it, too, look no further than the Romanesco, a kind of cauliflower that grows in fractals (as well as a Fibonacci spiral if you are into that sort of thing).

They taste good, are healthy, and provide all the Intrusive Pattern you could ever want without the need of any modern additive manufacturing technologies.

Going Deep and Deeper

To actually “make” this intrusive pattern I want something that I can hold, that does not require to be grown over the course of months, and that actually looks the part. And a few weeks ago I came across just the thing!

This is as close to a 3D-printed fractal as I have ever seen. The funny thing is that it is printed in vase mode, i.e. it is fast and (kinda) saves material. It’s printed in two pyramids glued together, which solves most support or bed adhesion issues. The file comes with different versions for different nozzles to make the print work flawlessly. For me, with a 0.6mm nozzle and 0.2mm layer height, it did!

Gazing into the implied depths of the structure, I cannot help but wonder whether it would be even more mesmerizing to use a smaller nozzle (like a 0.2mm) and a lower layer height (like 0.07mm). But since the imagination plays an important part in making this work as the infinity in your hand that it is, I doubt the added effect would be as mind-blowing as the thing itself is.

Intruding Feedback

Is this what an Intrusive Pattern looks like to you? Maybe you have a different association, or another idea on how to make this concept something real. Let me know on my Discord-Server! If you are into roleplaying games, check out a similar series over on Walking Papercut!

Thanks for stopping by, and remember to Be Inspired!