Leafcutter Music

created at Digital Naturalism Conference, Gamboa, Panama 2019
further documentation here

The shimmering, industrious leafcutter ants that build highways on the forest floor make up a complex adaptive system – the sophisticated patterns that they make are well beyond the sum of their individual parts. The ants’ collective intelligence emerges through the repetition of simple tasks, and somehow through self-organization they build cities without architects, roads without engineers.

What if - the same score that allows ants to build roads could allow them to become a collective musical instrument, engaged in a kind of structured improvisation?

Calibrated and tuned NetLogo simulation - turn up the sound!

The ants play their own bebop, they compose their own Xenakis-like songs.

At Dinacon in Gamboa, I also spent solo time in the jungle filming agoutis.