Source note: Local copy of a Summer Into AI 2026 submission originally published on Substack. Screenshots, video, and audio found in the post body are mirrored locally when publicly accessible; profile and avatar images are intentionally not copied. Read the canonical post.
In this style test, and last submission for me for week3, I had two goals: make use of post-processing concepts I learned in doing “nasapd” and then the second goal was to lean in on a unique art style to make sense of the data. I went with a cyberpunk notion-hence the tron like vibes.
The data in this case is a gallery of public art exhibits spread across the city of Chicago.
Which, well, ok this is a little out there.
This is a weirder experience-and I think anyone that loads into this would soon realize this one is … different.
There are a weird and eclectic set of ideas that I went with in this build. For example, not only can you visit the different photos of these public art-but you can enter a portal with a dedicated viewing room. The viewing room has a procedurally generated voxel terrain based on the semantic content of the public art, which means you get something that is a kind of artistic interpretation of the art. You can exit the portal and return back to the main city.
There’s a train
Press ‘t’ on the keyboard (you can’t board on mobile, it’s for desktop users only). The train ride is pretty simple. In this, you are the train. It’s the future, after all.
The coolest part of this entire setup though-and while I think the train turned out pretty good, and there’s certainly a lot of other little details hidden around… my favorite is this. Voxel re-creations of the art appear on a canvas in the sky.
Read more here: https://www.ericrhea.com/gamelab/chicagoarts.html
Play here: https://www.ericrhea.com/gamelab/projects/chicagoarts/index.html
Keys:
Shift key - run/sprint
‘t’ key - become the train/leave the train
wasd - movement
left click with mouse to move camera/orientation
Deep lore
The train technically is visible from the ground, but it’s moving fast if you want to see it. You won’t be able to outrun it, but you can catch it around corners and turns.
The pillars of light represent the artwork currently painted in voxel bricks in the sky.
To enter a portal, get near and click the button in the lower left.
Original source
Canonical Substack URL: https://advisoryhour.substack.com/p/erics-week3-submission-chicago-art.