17th century philosopher and scientist René Descartes described in his book The World, also called Treatise on Light, the idea that the universe consists of particles.
Descartes believed that there could be no vacuum in the world, and all matter was constantly swirling to prevent a void as corpuscles moved through other matter. The World presents a corpuscularian cosmology in which swirling vortices explain, among other phenomena, the creation of our solar system and the circular motion of planets around the Sun.

He describes substances as consisting only of three elementary elements: fire, air and earth, from which the properties of any substance can be characterized by its composition of these elements, the size and arrangement of the particles in the substance, and the motion of its particles.

Descartes believed that light traveled instantaneously – a common belief at the time – as an impulse across all the adjacent particles in nature, since Descartes believed nature was without a void. To illustrate this, Descartes used the example of a stick being pushed against some body. Just as the force which is felt at one end of the stick is instantly transferred and felt at the other end, so is the impulse of light that is sent across the heavens and through the atmosphere from luminous bodies to our eyes.

Descartes attributed light to have 12 distinct properties:

1. Light extends circularly in all direction from luminous bodies
2. Light extends out to any distance
3. Light travels instantaneously
4. Light travels ordinarily in straight lines or rays
5. Light travels ordinarily in straight lines or rays
6. Several rays can come from different points and meet at the same point
7. Several rays can start at the same point and travel in different directions
8. Several rays can pass through the same point without impeding each other
9. If the rays are of very unequal force, then they can sometimes impede one another
10. Rays can be diverted by reflection and refraction
11. The force of a ray can be augmented or diminished by the disposition of the matter that receives it.

source: Wikipedia

Although long falsified, the simplicity of his theories about the movement of matter and light still has an appeal. We took Descartes’ 12 distinct Properties of Light as an inspiration for our 2006 DokfestLounge identity design, in which particles float and twirl around, modelling the underlying typography with their colourful light traces. From each property, we derived a behaviour set for the particles and let them flow around the written rule. The generated visuals were used for projected wallpapers on the festival location.