# The River is a Circle at The Whitney

**URL:** <https://discourse.processing.org/t/the-river-is-a-circle-at-the-whitney/48939>\
**Category:** Gallery\
**Created:** [July 1, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/the-river-is-a-circle-at-the-whitney/48939 "2026-07-01T17:16:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![hx2A](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/hx2a/32/14322_2.png) [@hx2A](https://discourse.processing.org/u/hx2A)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/the-river-is-a-circle-at-the-whitney/48939/1 "2026-07-01T17:16:52Z")

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I’m happy to announce that _[The River is a Circle](https://jamesschmitz.art/the-river-is-a-circle.html)_, made in collaboration with [Marina Zurkow](https://o-matic.com/), was recently acquired by The Whitney’s permanent collection.

 ![the-river-is-a-circle](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/uploads/processingfoundation1/original/3X/9/0/907c27afc6b4572b2831ad0b5600ab091a8d04c8.jpeg)

This work is built using both Processing and py5.

Commissioned in 2025 for The Hyundai Terrace at the Whitney Museum of American Art, _The River is a Circle_ is a generative animation that portrays the Hudson River as a layered scene, dividing the view between life above and below the water’s surface. The animated imagery continuously shifts based on algorithmic probabilities, incorporating real-time weather, seasonal data, time of day, sunrise and sunset, tidal information, and live marine traffic from the immediate vicinity.

Many thanks to everyone in the Processing world for contributing to what makes this community and software so great. I started with Processing about 15 years ago as an unhappy person working in the corporate world. It is because of the Processing community that I have been able to navigate from that world to this one. Thank you for everything!