This is an Optical Art piece that lets your mind oscillate between seeing circles, squares or circles in squares. In some configurations it is obvious, in others that's a little more tricky.

The key concept that underlies this generative art piece is a mathematical algorithm that allows me to change a square array of dots into a circular arrangement. This is called circling a square.

The overall image is a regular 4 x 3 tessellation of "tiles" consisting of either circled or un-circled variations of a tile. Before I draw the image, I make three decisions. One, the choice which tile to use. Two, whether to shade the dots within a tile from the inside-out or the outside-in. And three, the background coloring. For the background color I chose either a uniform random color or one of four orientations of a linear gradient with its own random parameters.

In one version of a tile the positions of the dots are translated into a circle by the algorithm in the other version they are not translated. In both versions I scale the dots relative to their positions in the array that scale factor also determines their color, a shade of gray ranging from black to white.

It is possible for any iteration of this program to produce some crazy Gestalt effects. Enjoy.

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