IEVA VAITI

sound, art, technology

A SYSTEMS’ GARDEN

Systems’ Garden is a series of prints that explores the generative potential of recursive systems to create new, speculative botanical forms. The project began as an experiment in using simple computational rules to produce complex visual structures, reflecting my long-standing fascination with the unpredictable elegance and texture of natural environments. While I have often felt a certain distance from the synthetic qualities associated with digital technology, it was compelling to discover how intricate, organic-like structures can emerge from relatively simple mathematical processes—a concept that has been explored in both mathematics and biology for decades.

Through Systems’ Garden, I sought to investigate the computability of biological growth while also reflecting on our evolving relationship with technology. The resulting forms suggest unfamiliar plant species that appear both natural and artificial, existing somewhere between biological speculation and algorithmic construction.

The visual language of the series is based on the L-system, a formal grammar developed in 1968 by the mathematician Aristid Lindenmayer as a theoretical model for studying plant development and cellular growth. Using this established framework as a starting point, I experimented with a range of rule sets, parameters, and interpretations of the algorithm. By iteratively rewriting and adjusting the system, I allowed the code to generate a variety of branching structures, selecting and refining those that produced visually compelling and botanically suggestive results.

The final series of prints presents these algorithmically generated forms as a speculative garden—an exploration of how computational processes can echo the generative logic of nature while prompting reflection on the boundaries between the organic and the technological.

Exhibited at: EVA Conference 2024

Materials: Paper
Tools: p5js