Economic growth is a central tenet of contemporary capitalism; but the logic of endless growth seems increasingly difficult to sustain. Limits to Growth, published in 1972 (the year I was born), was commissioned by the Club of Rome to report on the economic implications of exponential growth, and used an abstract "world model" to predict the behaviour of the global economic system. This artwork experiments with growth in another model world: a simple generative system in the form of a computer program. In this two-dimensional system, growth has the ability to constrain itself, creating boundaries that define a formal and graphical whole. These forms are utopian diagrams of self-limiting growth.

Made with Processing; the generative system is a modified version of Murray Eden's simple 2d growth model - one of the earliest examples of computational biology. More over on Flickr.

See also: Limits to Growth (Exurbs); Space-Filling and Self Constraint