Tardigrada. Micro/Macro Fundamental, 2023
video installation / streaming / generative 3D simulation, Unreal Engine
sound (ambient) by Stefan Węgłowski
sound effects by Agata Chodera
The presented experiment (endless recording) is a gaming engine-based 3D simulation. Generated entities have been fitted with entry-level parameters determining their behaviour: seeking a partner/partners, preserving energy, developing metabolism, exploring the local terrain. Immanent community features include motion, nomadic forays and permanent hunger. Built in real time, the environment simulates boundless resources with the capacity to satisfy the needs of entity organisms. All creatures adapt to surroundings and conditions thanks to a sonar sense which helps them detect other individuals, necessary resources, and system interdependencies. Virtual beings simulate micro-organism behaviours with a dual purpose of surviving as long as possible, and forming relationships. Encoded growth instructions are copies, combined and processed with intent to create solid conditions for new populations. Once the simulation has been launched on opening night, all system-generating variables will be handled by algorithms.
The experiment has been based on a gaming engine and object-oriented programming. The simulation operates on a dual level: the installation displayed in gallery exhibition space, and a high-capacity broadband connection stream.
Tardigrada is a perfect match for reflections on self-reproduction and self-control of newly generated realms using data downloaded from the real world. All information is processed and converted for Virtual Reality purposes. The work is also a metapoetic narrative, describing the pleasures of observing microorganisms and their living processes. A method known to man for decades, microscope examination is expanded herein for purposes of following a complex grid of living, moving, interdependent “entities”.
The title Tardigrada alludes to tardigrades, invertebrates extraordinarily resilient to adverse natural conditions. They have ostensibly been the only ones to survive all mass extinctions on Earth.
