Nature versus nurture

In its stand-out installation at this year’s START art fair, teamLab invites visitors to explore a digital eco-system made up of flowers and butterflies, in which their actions affect the seasonal cycle.

Rendered in real time, flowers spring up, blossom and wither, the cycle of growth and decay repeated in perpetuity. By making sudden movements or by standing still, visitors can affect the cycle, generating new patterns that can never be replicated and will never recur – through random generation and human interference.

‘The boundary between nature’s work and the work of humans was unclear. In other words, nature and humans are not antagonistic concepts, but rather, a pleasant nature is an eco-system that also includes the work of humans,’ say the collective.

The Big Picture: Find out how Awakening Tech is creating more responsive relationships between the physical and digital worlds in our new Interface Market report.