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Gallery

At first glance, the changes in this gallery may seem a little underwhelming. That is mostly a matter of time: I have not yet run the months-long series of simulations needed to evolve stable populations capable of making truly multigenerational marks on an image. The longest simulation represented here ran for only about seven minutes—and getting the bots to survive even that long took more than 24 hours.

So, if you like, consider this gallery a placeholder. I see something more in it. Knowing what went into each image, I find these specks and swirls fascinating: an etched record of an entire world passing by.

The paused simulation's Export images action creates a Photobots Patina Pack locally in your browser. The pack contains the registered Original, Patina, alternate composition, evidence, and an English narrative seed. It is worth keeping in its own right and uploads nothing.

The export form also shows an optional preparation path for a future Gallery submission. Choosing it reveals the actual draft rights, credit, licence, and permission fields being tested. Once its required fields are complete, the exported pack includes gallery-permission.yml and GALLERY_PERMISSION.md so you can inspect the real machine-readable record and its human-readable companion. Both files preserve the wording and selections as draft-for-review material.

Public submissions are not open and the preparation format is still being tested. That does not prevent you from creating and inspecting a local draft package: it still sends, uploads, queues, registers, accepts, and publishes nothing. When intake opens, this page will describe the supported delivery route and the reviewed terms; it will not silently substitute a placeholder email address or upload service.

Supplying a prepared pack in the future will make it eligible for human review. It will not mean acceptance, rights clearance, artistic selection, or automatic publication. A separately curated and approved Gallery Work is the only artefact that can enter the public gallery.

Gallery material is curated and intended for a general audience.

The same sunny garden after Photobots activity, with fine pale and rust-coloured traces across the sky, foliage, lawn, and paving. Garden by Dave Sag The same future city crossed by pale curling and looping traces left by Photobots activity, with surviving bots omitted. Hero by Dave Sag