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.
— or tap the open page.

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

Select a cell to read its probability.

ROW = current state · COL = next state
opacity = probability · ■ = live transition

BEND THE RULES

Change the next decision, not the drawing’s past. The seed stays; the probabilities shift.

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.01 // VECTOR FIELD ADVECTION

FLOW FIELD

Particles trace a velocity field built from layered noise.

Tap to bend the current.

SEED 0x0000

NOISE FIELD · 131 072 PARTICLES · TRAIL ACCUMULATION

STUDY THIS SYSTEM

Particles follow a changing field of directions. A tap sets a local eddy; SHAPE lets you draw a short current that slowly dissolves. On a desktop the pointer is a stone the current parts around. The field keeps its own weather.

READ THE SOURCE ↗

This system stopped. RESEED to start it again.

SPX.02 // CONSTRAINED EXPANSION

DIFFERENTIAL GROWTH

Attraction, repulsion, and subdivision turn a loop into a coastline.

Tap to fold the edge.

SEED 0x0000

CLOSED CURVE · ATTRACT / REPEL / SUBDIVIDE · GHOST HISTORY

STUDY THIS SYSTEM

Neighbours pull together; strangers push apart. Long edges divide. The faint contours remember earlier shapes; the bright edge is growing now. SHAPE gently pulls the nearest arc; the pointer is a stone it grows around.

READ THE SOURCE ↗

This system stopped. RESEED to start it again.

SPX.03 // GRAY–SCOTT MODEL

REACTION–DIFFUSION

Two diffusing chemicals settle into spots, bands, and moving fronts.

Tap to seed a reaction.

SEED 0x0000

TWO-CHEMICAL SIMULATION · THE MATHS BEHIND LEOPARD SPOTS & FINGERPRINTS

STUDY THIS SYSTEM

A local dose of chemical starts a new front. Each regime sets a different balance of feed and removal. Changing it regrows the field from this specimen’s current seed. On a desktop the pointer is a lens that shifts the chemistry toward the next regime.

READ THE SOURCE ↗

This system stopped. RESEED to start it again.

SPX.04 // AGENT-BASED EMERGENCE

PHYSARUM

Simple agents follow and reinforce a shared chemical trail.

Tap to feed. Tap a source to remove it.

SEED 0x0000

262 144 TRAIL-FOLLOWING AGENTS · SENSE / TURN / DEPOSIT · DIFFUSING TRAIL MAP

STUDY THIS SYSTEM

Place up to three food sources and watch the trails reorganise. Their rings empty as food runs out. A fourth source replaces the oldest. Arrow keys position a source; Enter places or removes it. On a desktop the agents also smell the pointer and stream toward it.

READ THE SOURCE ↗

This system stopped. RESEED to start it again.

SPX.05 // DETERMINISTIC CHAOS

STRANGE ATTRACTOR

Four parameters fold a deterministic orbit into a dense image.

Tap to shift the orbit.

SEED 0x0000

CLIFFORD MAP · FOUR PARAMETERS · 262 144 POINTS PER FRAME · LONG EXPOSURE

STUDY THIS SYSTEM

Four numbers fold each point into the next. A tap nudges one number slightly; the old exposure dissolves into the new fold. Arrow keys choose where the nudge lands; Enter applies it. On a desktop the pointer scrubs two of the numbers within stable bounds, and they ease back when it leaves.

NUDGE PARAMETER —. Unstable changes are held back.

READ THE SOURCE ↗

This system stopped. RESEED to start it again.

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 and WebGL. View the source, change a number, and see what moves. If you want a guided route in:

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 drawing belongs to this visit.
Current seed: 0x0000.

SITE MAINTAINED BY JOHNNY VENABLES  //  Z13LABS.COM↗  //  X @JVENMUSIC↗