Protobyte Phylogeny — A natural history of an imagined world
Narration: Despina · American English female presentation, generated voice.

[00:00:00.000] Protobyte Phylogeny. An evolving artwork by Ira Greenberg. A natural history of an imagined world.

[00:00:10.000] This specimen carries forty-three recorded values. Together, they shape its body and movement. Here, girth influences body thickness; appendage length sets their scale; and symmetry arranges them sixfold around the body.

[00:00:29.067] In this variation study, one value changes. The appendages shorten, then return to their recorded length.

[00:00:38.833] Different niches favour different forms: long bare limbs at the bottom, ornamental fans at the reef, streamlined bodies in open water.

[00:00:51.500] Fitness combines authored preferences for inherited traits with an artificial intelligence model's assessment of a rendered specimen against a description of its niche.

[00:01:04.700] This assessment affects energy income. Age increases energy costs. When an organism's energy runs out, its life ends.

[00:01:16.333] As seasons turn, the favoured zone changes. Energy income changes with it, while the organism's genes and stored fitness score remain the same.

[00:01:29.467] Given enough energy, available space, and another participant, reproduction becomes possible. Offspring inherit traits from both parents, with mutation introducing variation.

[00:01:45.333] We follow these relationships across generations. Together, they form a history of descent: the phylogeny in the exhibition's title.

[00:01:57.700] The artistic medium includes the conditions themselves: what the world rewards, what continues, and what the record preserves when a life ends.

[00:02:11.267] Protobyte Phylogeny. Presented through Modal and Gray Area, in San Francisco this October. Discover the work at protobytes dot art.