SPX.01 // VECTOR FIELD ADVECTION
FLOW FIELD
Particles trace a velocity field built from layered noise.
SEED 0x0000
A LIVING INDEX OF ALGORITHMIC ART
NOBODY DREW THIS.
A five-state Markov chain is growing across the page —
25 transition weights, one seed, a new path each visit.
Click anywhere to plant a new branch.
001 // THE IDEA
THE ARTIST WRITES THE RULES.
THE SYSTEM DRAWS.
Generative art begins with a set of choices: what may move, what must stay fixed, and where chance is allowed in. You do not place every mark yourself. You build the system that places them, then watch it run. The artwork is both the image in front of you and the family of images those rules can produce.
This page starts with a deliberately small system. It knows five actions — grow, branch left, branch right, fork, pause — and uses a table of 25 weights to choose what follows what. That table is its Markov chain: the next action depends on the current state, not the full history. There is no source image or sketched endpoint. The branching form grows from those local decisions.
A seed gives the random number generator its starting point. Use the same seed and the system repeats the same sequence of decisions; change it and the growth takes another route. This visit is using 0x0000.
TRANSITION MATRIX — LIVE
ROW = current state · COL = next state
opacity = probability · ■ = live transition
002 // THE SPECIMENS
FIVE SYSTEMS,
FIVE WORLDS.
Each system below runs live in your browser from this visit’s seed. No recordings or pre-rendered images: the canvas is being drawn as you watch.
SPX.02 // CONSTRAINED EXPANSION
DIFFERENTIAL GROWTH
Attraction, repulsion, and subdivision turn a loop into a coastline.
SEED 0x0000
SPX.03 // GRAY–SCOTT MODEL
REACTION–DIFFUSION
Two diffusing chemicals settle into spots, bands, and moving fronts.
SEED 0x0000
SPX.04 // AGENT-BASED EMERGENCE
PHYSARUM
Simple agents follow and reinforce a shared chemical trail.
SEED 0x0000
SPX.05 // DETERMINISTIC CHAOS
STRANGE ATTRACTOR
Four parameters fold a deterministic orbit into a dense image.
SEED 0x0000
003 // FIELD NOTES
A SHORT COURSE
IN MAKING WORLDS.
N–01
RANDOMNESS IS A MATERIAL
Chance is not a shortcut; it is one of the materials. The useful question is where to let it act. An angle may wander while the spacing stays fixed, or a colour may vary inside a narrow range. A seeded random number generator makes those choices repeatable, so a promising result can be revisited, studied, and refined.
N–02
RULES BEFORE BEAUTY
Start with behaviour, not a picture to copy. Particles follow a field, chemicals react and diffuse, agents sense nearby trails. Each part follows a small local rule without knowing the overall shape. When those interactions produce structure at a larger scale, we call it emergence. Much of the work is tuning the rules until that structure feels alive without becoming predictable.
N–03
A LINEAGE, BRIEFLY
In 1965, Georg Nees and Frieder Nake showed computer-generated plotter drawings in galleries. Vera Molnár spent decades testing how small rule changes could disturb an orderly grid. Harold Cohen developed AARON, an evolving drawing program, from the 1970s onward. Casey Reas and Ben Fry released Processing in 2001 and made creative coding far more approachable. The tools have changed; the central idea has held: the program is part of the artwork.
N–04
START HERE
Everything on this page is open, readable JavaScript drawing to Canvas 2D. View the source, change a number, and see what moves. If you want a guided route in:
- P5.JS↗ — the friendliest way in
- THE CODING TRAIN↗ — every algorithm above, taught with joy
- THE BOOK OF SHADERS↗ — a practical introduction to drawing on the GPU
- TYLER HOBBS — ESSAYS↗ — thoughtful writing on flow, structure, and chance
- GENUARY↗ — a prompt a day, every January
THE OLD WING — 27 pieces, 59 artists, tools & research from this site’s first life — is kept as AN ARCHIVE↗
THE RULES STAY.
THE DRAWING CHANGES.
This page was drawn as you moved through it.
Current seed: 0x0000.
SITE MAINTAINED BY JOHNNY VENABLES // Z13LABS.COM↗ // X @JVENMUSIC↗