The Physarum Experiments:
slime
mould drawings & animations
For a few years now I have been
attempting to collaborate with the slime mould, Physarumpolycephalum,
observing and manipulating its beautiful growth
patterns and testing its intelligence and
problem solving skills.
The results so far show interesting behaviours
in response to trails set in various
food stuffs - oats are a favourite - and conditions.
Experiments appear below, the most recent first...
Physarum Experiment No:
011 First proper time lapse experiment, to observe
growth, direction and ability to locate food.
Physarum Experiments 007-009 Some more attempts to lure the slime mould
into creating interesting pattern formations...
Physarum Experiments 001-006 The first 6 time lapse films show various attempts
to entice the slime mould to follow trails set
in oats and oat paste. It doesn't always behave
predictably.
More public encounters with the pet slime mould
were created at the Brighton
Science Festival in
February 2009.
You can also see the results of 'Drawing
on Life',
a Big Draw event hosted by Wellcome Collection
and UCL in September 2008, which invited Heather,
and microbiologist and slime mould fan, Simon
Park, to share their experimental pets with
the public. People were invited to make their
own drawings from oat paste and unleash a slime
mould, in order to eat their creation. These
were photographed intermittently over a period
of a week to create short stop frame animations.
Want to find out more?
Download an info
sheet (pdf) on the clever slime mold.
