Sydney
GENERATIVE WEB WORK · 2026
A single grevillea lives here in Sydney's real time. Its light follows the actual sun; its leaves move with today's wind; when it rains in Sydney, rain falls on it.
At first it appears as an individual being, complete in itself. Stay still, and its relationships surface: the light and water passing through it, the soil and roots beneath it, the honeyeaters and lorikeets recently recorded nearby — each drawn as its own species, named, dated, placed in its true direction — and you. From time to time one of them flies in to feed at the flower.
Move freely through the flower and it multiplies. Move gently and it stays one flower, lit by your lantern. Its own reds, golds and greens fold into a mandala around its heart, turning as you circle it, changing its symmetry with the side you approach from. The single being holds a pattern; the pattern is still this one flower. Stop, and it settles back into itself.
Every visitor is a pollinator. Pass your light through the flower and you carry its pollen. Cross another visitor's light, or a path someone left earlier in the day, and a seedling takes root in a shared field that grows over the following weeks.
Draw back and the flower becomes one life among many: grevilleas recorded across the city, seedlings grown from visitors' meetings, all joined below ground. Draw close and it dissolves into the threads it is made of.
Gentle movement lights; free movement multiplies; stillness reveals. Scroll or pinch to change scale. Sound is optional.
Concept and artwork: Robert Sherwood Duffield. Weather: Open-Meteo. Wildlife records: Atlas of Living Australia and its contributors (CC BY). Presence in the shared field is anonymous; the path of your light fades within a day.