The thing that grows by wiping out its past and present

A generative drawing that visualizes a network’s growth and decay through dynamic motion, tension, and the erasure of memory.

Tension Series 2: The Thing That Grows by Wiping Out Its Past and Present is part of the Tension Series—a set of software-based explorations combining dynamic drawing with network processes to study self-organization in complex systems. This second piece in the series focuses on the role of temporary memory (buffering) in the growth and collapse of a network.

The software uses a physics-based simulation to organize the network structure. As new nodes and edges are added, the network expands; as nodes are removed, connections break and the network contracts. Throughout this cycle, nodes push and pull on one another, creating varying degrees of tension along the edges.

These tensions are visualized through color:

• High tension appears as saturated color
• Low tension appears as darker tones
• Resolved tension fades to black

The result is a generative drawing, painted by the motion of the network and the evolving color of its parts—a system that grows by shedding what it just became.