epimorph
Growing a new body
In this simulation, a virtual body emerges from a single cell in real time. Its growth is shaped by it’s physical environment, which consists of the computer’s processor and
graphics card and the environment of the location. Sensors capture environmental signals, transfer them into the simulation, where they influence the body’s growth decisions. Their interchange blurs the boundary between artificial life and organic ecosystems.
The cells grow along a procedural rig that is generated based on sensor data. The light decides upon the body’s symmetry, shifting from uniaxial to bilateral symmetric and asymmetric to radial. Temperature acts over the size of the bones, while humidity guides the position of limb buds. Air pressure determines the amount of limbs, whereas a base volume influences the amount of bones per limb and the gas composition (air quality) tells the body at which angle to grow the limbs.
During cell division, the sensor data delivers information for the new cell, humidity decides over it’s size, the light value chooses the pigmentation, volume influences the cell separation speed. Simulating morphogenesis reveals how complex structures at all levels emerge from simpler rule based agents.
In the installation of the Graduation Show 2025, two creatures grow simultaneously from identical code and connected to the same set of sensors, but in slightly different environments. While biological morphogenesis involves regulatory gene networks, chemical and mechanical signals, and environmental factors, this work focuses on the role of the environment during a body’s evolution.
It invites to reflect where environment starts:stops and interconnectedness between living beings, planetary environments and technologies begins and to re-think of our own agency that we hold within the systems that we are interwoven with.
graphics card and the environment of the location. Sensors capture environmental signals, transfer them into the simulation, where they influence the body’s growth decisions. Their interchange blurs the boundary between artificial life and organic ecosystems.
The cells grow along a procedural rig that is generated based on sensor data. The light decides upon the body’s symmetry, shifting from uniaxial to bilateral symmetric and asymmetric to radial. Temperature acts over the size of the bones, while humidity guides the position of limb buds. Air pressure determines the amount of limbs, whereas a base volume influences the amount of bones per limb and the gas composition (air quality) tells the body at which angle to grow the limbs.
During cell division, the sensor data delivers information for the new cell, humidity decides over it’s size, the light value chooses the pigmentation, volume influences the cell separation speed. Simulating morphogenesis reveals how complex structures at all levels emerge from simpler rule based agents.
In the installation of the Graduation Show 2025, two creatures grow simultaneously from identical code and connected to the same set of sensors, but in slightly different environments. While biological morphogenesis involves regulatory gene networks, chemical and mechanical signals, and environmental factors, this work focuses on the role of the environment during a body’s evolution.
It invites to reflect where environment starts:stops and interconnectedness between living beings, planetary environments and technologies begins and to re-think of our own agency that we hold within the systems that we are interwoven with.