I was researching the way communities of individual organisms build structure and form together, like coral, ant hills, cities, beehives, jellyfish, human bodies, and lichen. I was interested in the emergent forms built without central oversight by these individual beings. I wanted to understand what it is to be a unified, conscious body of disparate organisms.

As part of that work, I created a series of simulations like this one that used the principles of “object-oriented programming,” the idea of which is to create cellular automata and give them a set of rules to follow, then allow them free rein to build a world within the constraints of those rules.

Here’s a link to the live project – click anywhere to spawn a new “space termite,” or hit the spacebar to reset.