Evolved Virtual Creatures

What we're doing is self-reference, where the code is this functional thing that makes this shape that we see on the screen now, but it also is data that gets copied and passed on to its next iteration. That's close to Karl Sims's work with reproduction and his geometric Evolved Virtual Creatures.

John Watkinson, Larva Labs on Computation’s Strangeness

Karl, in many ways it started with Evolved Virtual Creatures and Alex, your DeepDream (2015) was critical to the popularization of deep learning and creativity.

Peter Bauman, Karl Sims & Alexander Mordvintsev on Merging Technology and Biology