a generative vermin installation

bugworld is an interactive installation that lets people play god. More precisely, they become the god of a world inhabited by bugs. Through a very simple interface, the user can influence parameters such as speed, interest or field of vision. Each bug has a set of »genes« which it passes on to its children. Those genes are conveyed visually through different sets of bodies and legs. bugworld started as an experiment on basic evolutionary behaviour and population carried out during a programming course at FH JOANNEUM Graz.

As the project continued it became clear that it is quite entertaining to control the bugs and to play god in their world. Four parameters were defined to control the bugs: »plants« regulates how many new plants grow, »bug speed« sets how fast bugs can crawl, »bug lifetime« sets the average life expectancy and »eat–fuck« influences the interest of the bugs. To strengthen the god-like feeling even more, proper apocalypses were implemented to end a bug civilisation. These include asteroid impact, the broom of god, romantic foam and many more.

For an exhibition at the »Museumsquartier« (MQ) in Vienna the application was extended to an interactive installation that projects the world onto a table and is controlled by a simple interface consisting of four turning knobs, three switches and one pushbutton. The knobs control the four parameters (plants, speed, lifetime & interest). The switches reveal additional information about the population and its behaviour. And the red pushbutton gives you the ultimate god-like experience. The installation has been shown at the exhibition »Für den Fall« in Vienna (MQ) and Graz (Joanneum & Forum Stadtpark).