Garden

This pair shows the same peaceful garden before and after a Photobots simulation. The first image is the untouched scene; the second records the surface after the simulation has run, preserving only the accumulated patina and the bodies of bots that have died.

What changed

Rather than reshaping the scene, the simulation leaves a delicate layer of distributed traces across the image. These marks form the garden’s patina: the visible record of countless local interactions, together with the bodies of Photobots that did not survive to the moment of capture.

In just under 8 simulated seconds, an initial population of 500 Photobots produced this patina; 451 had died by the time it was captured, with 49 still alive. The survivors were omitted from the final image.