Symbiosis

United Kingdom, 2024

Courtesy Universal Everything

Artwork
Universal Everything, Symbiosis (2024). Image courtesy of the artists

Symbiosis is an interactive window into another world – one that’s strangely familiar, but alien at the same time. Could you be peering at microscopic cells inside your own body? Or are you seeing two raindrops on a leaf?

In this artwork, Universal Everything make the miniature monumental. Although Symbiosis is made with the same game engine and graphics as some of the other artworks, it doesn’t move as fast. You can slow down and explore how unrushed and deliberate evolution is while you and another person stick, slide and combine to create tiny new life. Or you can bubble on alone, stretching and squelching across the screen as you return to the basic shape that starts all life.

The UE team testing Symbiosis

The Universal Everything team testing the interactivity and body-tracking technology behind Symbiosis. If you look at the small human shapes in the bottom right corner you can see their bodies and the work responding to it.

Creative Director: Matt Pyke
Technical Development and Animation: Chris Mullany
Sound Design: Simon Pyke
Executive Producer: Claire Spencer Cook
Studio Technician: Spike Thompson

Find out how Infinity was made, in this short presentation by Universal Everything's Interactive Creative Director, Joel Gethin Lewis.

Discover the story behind Universal Everything in this video featuring key members of the collective.

How are these works connected?

Explore this constellation

Related works

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

This work is not a single channel linear video and thus cannot be effectively shown online.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

Not in ACMI's collection

Previously on display

6 October 2024

ACMI: Gallery 4

Credits

artist

Universal Everything

Production places
United Kingdom
Production dates
2024

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

LN196374

Object Types

Artwork

Digital

Materials

Real-time interactive installation, stereo sound

Collected

11724 times

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/122598--symbiosis/ |title=Symbiosis |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=8 December 2024 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}