Shaders are instructions written directly to the GPU (Graphic Processing Unit), operating at a level where each pixel becomes its own tiny workspace. Instead of processing an image line by line, they work in parallel—tens of thousands of pixels updating at the same time, each running the same code with slightly different inputs.

I’m drawn to shaders because they feel close to the metal. They’re lean, precise, and brutally fast—perfect for bending an image in real time. In my work, shaders warp, blend, and dissolve visuals in ways that would be impossible at higher levels of code.

They can be surgical, making the smallest color adjustments at microsecond speed. Or they can be chaotic, tearing apart a video feed and rebuilding it as liquid distortion. The beauty of shaders is that they aren’t just applied to images—they generate them, reconstructing the frame from scratch every time.

For me, writing shaders is like designing a rule set for an army of invisible painters, each one responsible for a single pixel, all working at once.