crash and bloom: A Self-Defeating Regenerative System

crash and bloom is an elec-tronic sculpture that undergoes population density cycles similar to those found in some natural systems. The system is made up of 42 boxes, their simple behaviors and the interconnec-tion topology of the boxes with one another, which enables them to pass “ping” messages around the network. Three simple rules determine how the boxes respond to the ping messages. These rules, coupled with a feedback loop topology, allow the emergence of crash and bloom cycles: The density of pings in the system rises rapidly, saturates the environ-ment, crashes and rises again.