by DiPisaStasinski

The year was 2020, a time when generative AI had not yet seen the light of day.

We aimed at creating art using AI.

We aimed to explore the possibility of creating an artificial organism with the capability to paint. 

But we did not want to train the AI on human-made data.

We wanted the AI to create images based on its own physical conditions. 

But we did not want to decide on its physical appearance.

We consulted an evolutionary biologist.

We set up a laboratory, an artificial environment where the artificial organism came into being.

Through the process of attracting singular parts to one another, bodily forms emerged.  


The traces of this process became training data for the AI. 


Mind and body evolved hand-in-hand, through code and mechatronics.


An artificial milieu was created for the being to inhabit.


To be able to perform, it needed to live in symbiosis with its environment. 


Arcana, still in an early evolutionary stage, is about to evolve further.

Where this evolutionary process will lead is still unknown.

Meanwhile, Arcana has entered a transformational stage as a cocoon.

Awaiting the possibility of performing its code within a different technoecology.

The new living conditions forced the organism to evolve physical attributes that enabled it to continue painting. 


And through Arcana, a new set of visual expressions emerged.