Generative Ants

June 2025

One night on the balcony, I watched a single ant methodically walk across the floor. Random thought: what if I could trace and plot ant pathways?

One hour later, I'm politely asking the AI to help me build an ant-tracking system that runs in the browser. Thanks, Claude, you did a great job!

Next thing I know, I'm strolling at midnight with my 2-month-old baby along the beach, armed with a small box and a sheet of paper, hunting for ants. Turns out this was the hardest part of the whole demented project. After collecting a couple in twenty minutes of struggle, I spotted a lost potato chip on the walkway, complete with little red ants already on top. Jackpot!

But then a new challenge emerged: my wife is allergic to red-ant bites. If these ants were going to become our new live-in artists, I needed to make a really solid case before she woke up.

Once home, I abandoned the sleeping baby on the rocking chair, set up a plastic box on white paper, and covered it with a plexiglass panel to prevent any escapes. I hooked up my phone as a camera to the PC, started recording the ants wandering, and captured their paths to eventually save them as an SVG file.

This was the first output of this silly journey. I’d love to say no ants were harmed during this workshop, but unfortunately a few perished in tragic art accidents. This piece is dedicated to those lost ants, and to all the ants we unknowingly annihilate every day.

All because one little ant couldn't just walk somewhere else.