September 2025 Ars Electronica, October 2025 Gwangyang
a terrarium
a terrarium explores artificial life, survival, and collapse within a sealed environment. A projection maps an evolving simulation onto a miniature landscape, turning the terrarium into a living world. Visitors can read and influence the emerging narratives, sending “god prompts” to influence the system.
Within, generative AI agents build shelters, cultivate land, and adapt to their surroundings. Their behavior is driven by a system inspired by Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior (Park et al., 2023), in which language-model cognition, memory, and reflection are combined to simulate believable planning and social dynamics. The environment evolves continuously, shaped by agent actions and external interventions.
Referencing artificial life research, ecological experiments, god games, and AI alignment debates, the project reflects on control, consequence, and the strange familiarity of artificial struggle.
Selected work of the 2025 Gwangyang–Linz Media Arts Exchange Grant.
Shown at the Ars Electronica Festival 2025 "PANIC – yes/no", POSTCITY, Theme Exhibition, Chapter 1: Moral Limits of Control, Linz (AT), 3–7 September 2025
and at the Gwangyang International Media Arts Festival "Cycloidal Creatures", Gwangyang (KR), 22 October – 4 November 2025.
Based on Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior (Joon Sung Park et al.)
See also: an office, where the same kind of agents have replaced all human workers.
