Fractal Microorganisms

2008 - 2009

This project is originally a part of the "Sit Down, Please" exhibition, and later becomes a project on its own. The main aim of exhibition "Sit Down, Please" is to introduce the beauty of simple forms to children, which led me to the idea of making small virtual microorganisms on the computer.

The concept came from a kind of microorganism named Radiolaria. They are amoeboid protoza with mineral skeletons living in the ocean. Their almost-symmetry siliceos skeletons appears like jewelries under the microscope, which became the inspiration for some artists. So it occurs to me that what if I let people draw the skeleton then make them into symmetry?

The skeletons also has the feature of fractals, which often being mentioned when discussing the forms of nature. Both of symmetry and fractals can be generated from one simple structure. Therefore, I decided to write a script that let people draw a random structure, and using the structure to generate a symmetry fractal shape. The fractals have their diameter through the time according to a sinusoid, making them almost like breathing.

The way to play the application is to draw some lines on the screen and hit a button, the script will use the shape drawn to generate fractal shapes and multiplied into a microorganism-like, breathing creature. Users are allowed to control the numbers and degrees of multiplication in real-time to observe the structural change, and save the creature to the "Zoo" database which can be seen by others.