Anastomosis
Threads that find their way.
A hidden network.
A landscape of connections.
01 / Through time
A network comes into being.
Follow the spread, branching and joining of fungal filaments across the expanded landscape.
The saved growth sequence, with the final colour treatment held fixed.
Download recording ↓02 / Interpretation
The art of
connection.
Anastomosis brings the hidden growth of fungal networks into view. Fine threads spread, branch and join, weaving separate patches into an intricate whole. Warm reds and pale strands against a cool green ground give this quiet process a vivid presence.
Within Intelligence in Nature, the work celebrates how living things find their way through their surroundings—reaching nutrients, navigating obstacles and forming connections as they grow.
03 / Process
How the work takes form.
Model the environment
A Python artificial-life simulation represents fungal filaments as connected points within a 2D environment containing nutrients and obstacles.
Grow the network
Filaments absorb and transport resources. Their tips extend, branch and fuse, responding to nutrient availability, crowding and their surroundings.
Render the structure
A separate renderer turns the simulated network into coloured strands, adding thickness, soft staining and a fibrous background. The recording follows the network’s saved growth sequence, with the final colour treatment held fixed.
04 / Source
Open the work.
The threads, the connections, the colour.
Explore the code that brings them together.
Regenerate growth, then render the encounter.
- fungus.py
- The growing network
- render_fungus.py
- The strands and staining
- make_growth_record.py
- The development recording
Reproduce the work
Unzip the download and open a terminal inside Anastomosis_Code.
Python 3.12; NumPy, SciPy and Pillow. FFmpeg with libx264 is needed only for movies.
python -m pip install -r original/requirements.txt cd original python fungus.py --out runs/final --steps 240 --snapshot 40 --seed 217 --branch-rate 0.105 python render_fungus.py runs/final/state_0240.npz --out render --size 3000 --seed 831 --layers
This code package regenerates the network before rendering. The selected image is written to original/render/Anastomosis.png. The README includes the expanded landscape and film export.
What’s in the download
Original and expanded growth models, material renderers, film and development-sheet exporters, parameters and recorded checks.
Instructions and numerical settings are included with the code.
Continue the exhibition
