Karl Sims — Panspermia

1990

Artists: Karl Sims · Year: 1990 · Medium: Computer-animated short — plant-like forms growing through genetic simulation · Substrate: Connection Machine CM-2 parallel supercomputer; custom genetic-algorithm software; rendered to 35mm film · Place: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA · Institution: Thinking Machines Corporation; MIT Media Lab affiliations Karl Sims's Panspermia (1990) is a one-minute computer-animated short depicting plant-like organisms growing, reproducing, and propagating across an alien landscape. The organisms are generated by genetic algorithms — each organism's form is encoded as a short program, parents produce offspring whose programs combine their genes, and natural-selection pressures (light, space, nutrients) shape successive generations. The film shows evolution compressed into a minute: from initial seed to diverse ecosystem. Sims was at Thinking Machines, the Cambridge-based company that built the Connection Machine — a massively-parallel supercomputer that could run thousands of genetic evaluations simultaneously. Panspermia exploited that hardware explicitly. The film could not have been made on any other machine of the period. Thinking Machines went bankrupt in 1994; the Connection Machine architecture did not survive; Sims's work from the early 1990s is inseparable from that specific moment of parallel computing. Panspermia was followed by Evolved Virtual Creatures (1994), in which Sims evolved virtual physical organisms — block creatures, made of jointed rigid bodies — that learned to swim, walk, jump, and compete in simulated physics. That work, widely circulated on video and later on YouTube, is one of the foundational demonstrations of evolved artificial life. Sims has continued to work at the intersection of genetic algorithms, simulation, and visual art. His GenArts company produces specialty visual-effects software; his academic and artistic output has remained substantial. He is still working. Lore Panspermia was selected as the Ars Electronica Prix d'Or for computer animation in 1991. The film's organisms were not modeled by hand — every plant species in the film emerged from the genetic simulation, and Sims's role was curatorial (selecting which evolved lineages to feature). Thinking Machines' bankruptcy in 1994 scattered many of its researchers; Sims went into independent practice. His algorithms for evolved virtual creatures have been influential in subsequent AI/robotics research. Sources • Sims, Karl — karlsims.com archive • Ars Electronica 1991 Prix catalog • Thinking Machines Corporation records (MIT archive)