PERMACULTURE – ‘watching things grow’
spontaneous structure
permaculture – seeing the world as an inter-related whole
“Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.”
-Bill Mollison
“Permaculture is a design system based on observing nature and developing a set of principles that are in harmony and allowing the ecological functions to all occur while still keeping a place for human beings in it as well.”
-Toby Hemenway
State Schematics
Available as 17″ x 11″ and 11″ x 7″ inkjet prints on 100lb acid-free print paper. The buttons underneath will take you to the storp.
This is an animation based on the principles of permaculture – allowing nature to grow as it may. Spontaneous structure – the plants grow where they can in and around each other forming networks of symbiotic relationships. The algorithm is simple: single pixels ‘sprout’ at certain places taking on the color of that square. From there, they grow, one pixel per frame filling available space and making sure not to reconnect with itself nor any identically colored ‘growth’. New sprouts are added over time until all of the space is filled. There is an attempt to keep pixel colors matching the image underneath as much as possible. This may be an algorithm, but the key is that all decisions(color, direction, etc..) have been made by a human being (me). It is in this way that it serves as a document of consciousness, a document of a living presence – a state of being. The structure is spontaneous – the lines may go any way at all providing they follow the simple rules stated above. What is it that accounts for the specific forms created – the variations/decisions made where there is no rule to determine them? I suggest that is state of being – personality, habits, character, mood, aesthetic preferences, environment, and all other possible influences.
Music is from Commodore 64 ‘Synth Sample: Magic Shadows’.