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Protobyte Phylogeny.

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An evolving artwork by Ira Greenberg.

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A natural history of an imagined world.

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This specimen carries forty-three recorded values.

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Together, they shape its body and movement.

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Here, girth influences body thickness; appendage

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length sets their scale; and symmetry

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arranges them sixfold around the body.

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In this variation study, one value changes.

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The appendages shorten, then return

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to their recorded length.

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Different niches favour different forms: long bare

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limbs at the bottom, ornamental fans at

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the reef, streamlined bodies in open water.

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Fitness combines authored preferences for inherited traits
with

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an artificial intelligence model's assessment of a
rendered

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specimen against a description of its niche.

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This assessment affects energy income.

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Age increases energy costs.

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When an organism's energy runs

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out, its life ends.

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As seasons turn, the favoured zone changes.

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Energy income changes with it, while the organism's

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genes and stored fitness score remain the same.

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Given enough energy, available space, and

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another participant, reproduction becomes possible.

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Offspring inherit traits from both

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parents, with mutation introducing variation.

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We follow these relationships across generations.

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Together, they form a history of descent:

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the phylogeny in the exhibition's title.

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The artistic medium includes the conditions themselves:
what

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the world rewards, what continues, and what the

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record preserves when a life ends.

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Protobyte Phylogeny.

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Presented through Modal and Gray Area,

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in San Francisco this October.

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Discover the work at protobytes dot art.