The origin of this paper lies in the fundamental question of how complexity arose in the course of evolution and how one might construct an artistic interactive system to model and simulate this emergence of complexity. Relying on the idea that interaction and communication between entities of a system drive the emergence of structures that are more complex than the mere parts of that system, the authors propose to apply principles of complex system theory to the creation of VERBARIUM, an interactive, computer-generated and audience-participatory artwork on the Internet, and to test whether complexity can emerge within this system.

This article consists of two sections: the first provides a brief overview of artificial-life art and entertainment software, some of the main products and their peculiarities; and the second describes one of the authors' artificial-life software products, called Life Spacies II , which was created between 1997 and 1999. This system consists of a web page that allows users to create artificial-life creatures by simply typing in text characters using a web page “editor.” Written text is used as genetic code to model the creature's body. The body shape subsequently influences the creature's ability to move, which in turn determines the creature's behavior, survival and reproduction within the Life Spacies II environment. In addition, users of the system can feed the creatures with text characters and thus even more actively influence the creatures' survival and reproduction in their environment.

The authors design computer installations that integrate artificial life and real life by means of human-computer interaction. While exploring real-time interaction and evolutionary image processes, visitors to their interactive installations become essential parts of the systems by transferring the individual behaviors, emotions and personalities to the works' image processing. Images in these installations are not static, pre-fixed or predictable, but “living systems” themselves, representing minute changes in the viewers' interactions with the installations' evolutionary image processes.