Navigate an evolving simulation where small neural networks mimic biological life

nom nom is a navigable artwork by artist Xin Liu created during an Online Artist Residency with LAS Art Foundation in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture Lab. The work simulates an emergent digital world of millions of interacting particles driven by Neural Cellular Automata.

Inspired by Google DeepMind research, Xin explores intelligence as an emergent phenomenon of interacting matter. Through neighbor-to-neighbor interactions, particles form, compete, and dissolve into a living ecology.

Special thanks to Alexander Mordvintsev, Akarsh Kumar, Blaise Agüera y Arcas and Dylan Banarse

How it works

- A 30-day simulation: Witness the world regenerate every 24 hours, evolving through local exchanges of Neural Cellular Automata, autonomous creatures and Gaia - an AI-weather system.

- Neural Cellular Automata: Trained with specific behaviours, these networks mimic biological cell’s ability to self-organize into complex organisms.

- Gaia (Google Gemini): Integrated as an observer, Gemini dynamically alters weather conditions and analyzes the landscape’s evolution with onscreen text-based provocations

- Digital archive: The simulation concludes with a permanent record, allowing visitors to explore the entire month’s transformation.

From the artist: "What we call forests, cities, or selves may be temporary patterns emerging from smaller exchanges of matter and memory. I want to explore how intelligence is not concentrated in one monumental model, but distributed across millions of tiny neural networks." - artist Xin Liu

Find out more about the residency on Google Arts & Culture and LAS Art Foundation.