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Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
by Jonathan McCabe
PNG format image file, 59049 x 59049 pixels, 8-bit/color RGB
The first work in Jonathan McCabe’s Cellularity series.
Explore it in detail on the artist’s website, where it can be zoomed into to reveal its intricate structures: https://jonathanmccabe.com/cellularity/
Dynamics like a Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction in an inflating space. Inspired by inflationary theories of cosmology where the galactic structures are from inflated microscopic fluctuations of density, variations tinier than atoms become bigger than galaxies. A lattice model of 4 variables with 16 couplings is perturbed by inflated fluctuations from previous time steps, giving different dynamics in areas leading to what looks like membrane bound structures reminiscent of eukaryotic cells, or possibly fingerprints.
This works descends from Conway’s Game of Life. As in Life, space is a grid of “cells”, time is in discrete steps, and the interactions are purely local between each cell and its eight neighbours. Each cell has a state of four numbers rather than the single bit (“alive” or “dead”) of the Game of Life. After a certain number of “generations” the cell values are enlarged on the grid and the process repeated. New structures form, influenced by the fields of previous structures, endlessly elaborating.
Exhibited at EMERGENCE, Kate Vass Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland, 2026.
by Jonathan McCabe
PNG format image file, 59049 x 59049 pixels, 8-bit/color RGB
The first work in Jonathan McCabe’s Cellularity series.
Explore it in detail on the artist’s website, where it can be zoomed into to reveal its intricate structures: https://jonathanmccabe.com/cellularity/
Dynamics like a Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction in an inflating space. Inspired by inflationary theories of cosmology where the galactic structures are from inflated microscopic fluctuations of density, variations tinier than atoms become bigger than galaxies. A lattice model of 4 variables with 16 couplings is perturbed by inflated fluctuations from previous time steps, giving different dynamics in areas leading to what looks like membrane bound structures reminiscent of eukaryotic cells, or possibly fingerprints.
This works descends from Conway’s Game of Life. As in Life, space is a grid of “cells”, time is in discrete steps, and the interactions are purely local between each cell and its eight neighbours. Each cell has a state of four numbers rather than the single bit (“alive” or “dead”) of the Game of Life. After a certain number of “generations” the cell values are enlarged on the grid and the process repeated. New structures form, influenced by the fields of previous structures, endlessly elaborating.
Exhibited at EMERGENCE, Kate Vass Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland, 2026.