Audiovisual Installation at ZKM’s Biomedia Exhibition
Developed by Bernd Lintermann, Dan Wilcox, Ludger Brümmer & Yasha Jain.
Agents is an immersive audiovisual installation that simulates lifelike behavior using algorithmically controlled digital entities. These artificial creatures inhabit a shared virtual space where they interact not only with one another but also with visitors in real time, creating an emergent, dynamic environment that blurs the boundaries between natural behavior and artificial life.
The installation creates a living ecosystem of algorithmic “agents” each with its own sensory framework, behavioral traits, and social tendencies. Visitors are tracked via a real-time camera system and can engage with the digital creatures through spatial movement. Each agent reacts differently:
The result is a vivid choreography of autonomous behaviors that appears natural yet unmistakably artificial.
Agents questions the nature of intelligence and life by demonstrating how complex, lifelike behaviors can emerge from simple rule-based systems. Visitors become active participants in a generative system that continuously evolves based on their presence.
Spatialized audio enhances the experience: the position of both creatures and visitors is made perceptible not just visually, but acoustically, using a multichannel sound system that places sounds in real space.
Developed in Unity by Yasha Jain, this system responds to visitor movement, enabling seamless communication between the agents and their human counterparts.
Digital creatures are rendered using custom shaders and predefined behavious. Some agents have individual behavious, some have flock behavious. This gives each agent a unique visual character and creates an eco system of various creatures.
Each agent operates autonomously using different behaviour models. Some agents come close to you, while some run away , some agents react in an evolutionary manner when you spend some time near them. They react dynamically to the interaction stimulii.
A multichannel spatial audio system maps the position of agents and visitors in real space, reinforcing immersion and interaction.
Exhibited as part of Biomedia, ZKM’s landmark exhibition exploring the convergence of biology, media, and artificial intelligence, Agents reflects the aesthetic and philosophical implications of machine-generated behavior and artificial life forms.
With its layered sensory interactivity and generative system, Agents exemplifies a future where algorithmic systems do more than simulate life—they begin to behave in ways that evoke it.