Paper Cut

Watch Paper Cut live in the browser

A shadow box of eight paper sheets, lit from behind: a glowing sky with a moon and stars at the back, then cut-paper hills with pine trees, each sheet darker than the one behind it and casting a soft shadow onto it.

Each sheet's skyline comes from its own slice of the spectrum, bass on the front sheet and treble on the back: the bins raise the hills and grow the pines, smoothed so nothing snaps. The sheets slide past each other with parallax, the front ones fastest. A kick knocks the box, and the sheets swing on a damped spring and settle.

What it reacts to

• Spectrum: shapes the hills and the height of the pines, bass on the front sheet, treble on the back
• Kick drum: nudges the box, and the sheets bounce and settle
• Bass: the moon grows and its glow brightens
• Hi-hat and treble: the stars glint
• Overall loudness: drives the parallax drift and lights the cut edges

Tune

Drift sets how fast the sheets slide, Relief sets how much the spectrum raises the hills and pines, and Sky, Paper and Front sheet pick the colours of the backdrop, the back sheets and the front sheet.

Music that suits it

Acoustic, folk or downtempo music with a gentle beat suits its pace, and tracks with a full low end raise tall hills on the front sheet.

How to play it

Install Deus, play music on Spotify, YouTube Music, Yandex Music or any other tab and click the Deus icon on that tab. Then pick Paper Cut in the WebGL presets, or press ← → on the page until it comes up.