Transformations and Gradients

There are a few different ways we can look at this. Transformation is something in which one thing turns into something else. Looked at in a static way, the thing is now one identity and then, because of some motivating action, it now has another.

However, if you are working in a medium that is homogeneous -- like a structural system, like a grid, like an envelope system, you can look at that medium as something that can be discritized (made discrete, piece by piece, for example cellular) but you want to produce different effects from it, you can think of small local changes that will produce larger more global scale transformations.

see for example
http://www.unlekker.net/proj/electroplastique/