From recurring patterns emerge organisms: systems capable of adaptation, learning and self-maintenance. What once appeared as isolated behaviours now begins to exhibit persistence, memory and change over time.

The artists in this chapter explore computation as a living process rather than a static object. Their works learn, evolve and respond, suggesting that intelligence may arise not from individual decisions but from continuous interaction between system and environment.

Rather than asking whether machines are alive, they ask what qualities we recognise as life and whether those qualities might themselves be emergent.