Evlove is a generative lineage, where each piece carries the unfolding journey of its ancestry.

The title ("evolve" reversed) signals a quiet inversion: a turning inward that favors recurrence, inheritance and small shifts in expression over cumulative complexity. A single genetic framework produces a family of related but distinct offspring; the structure remains recognizable even as outcomes drift.

Evlove treats the artwork as an organism with a genetic code at its core. A fixed set of traits behave like genes that recombine across generations. The morphotype anchors a shared family identity throughout a lineage; variation is phenotypic. Depth defines family lineage not complexity. The first two depths set the founding parents. Subsequent generations form by crossing the two preceding pieces in the lineage. At every eighth generation an external parent is introduced (an act of outcrossing, like pollen carried in from elsewhere) to stop the lineage from folding in on itself. Certain gene combinations may produce mutations, while anomalies arise independently of inheritance, interrupting the expected continuity of the lineage.

Collectors shape the lineage by deciding what continues. Each choice nudges the lineage one way or another, while chance keeps it from being fully controlled. The result hovers between intention and an organic digital evolution.

Evlove also functions as a first proof-of-concept for the $fx.genetics ($DNA) library that underpins it and explores what might yet emerge when artworks are allowed to inherit, mutate, and reoccur rather than accumulate.

Joseph Miclaus × February 2026

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Tap or click canvas to open controls.

Keyboard Controls (in live view):
- Press [SPACE] to pause/unpause the animation.
- Press [S] or [ArrowDown] to save current frame.
- Press [F] to toggle fullscreen mode.
- Press [B] to toggle alternative background.
- Press [X] to toggle genome display.

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Technical Notes

The work features adaptive animation that sets its parameters based on your device's performance when the piece first loads. After the piece's DNA strand completes its initial forward animation, the animation parameters are recalculated to match proven performance. This introduces a new dimension of determinism, where the animation is defined by these measurements, creating a distinctive interaction between code and hardware.

Curious about the genetic variations in the piece? Open the console and run `$DNA.getSchema()`. Look for the "mutations" property to see the possible mutations for the respective gene. The parent and offspring genomes are already pre-printed in the console for reference.

Generative artists who mint a piece that is three generations deep within the first seven days of minting are eligible to use the $fx.genetics library for one of their own projects.

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This project uses:
- p5.js v1.11.11
- @fxhash/project-sdk v0.0.17
- p5.grain v0.8.0
- fx.genetics v1.0.0

See LICENSE file for details.