For children's hospitals and pediatric clinics
Proties drift through a calm pond, and Genomies, small creatures each grown from its own genome, live along its shore. Children pick two Genomies, hatch a new one, and send it into the pond, where it is waiting for them at their next visit.
Artificial-life artworks by Ira Greenberg · Hospital edition in development
What children see
Soft pond creatures glide and explore at an unhurried pace. When food sinks into the water, the nearest one notices, swims over, eats, and then looks back at whoever is watching.
Twelve founding Genomies, each with a name and a temperament. Mossle naps in the sun, Brindle greets everyone, and Ombu keeps one great eye on you.
A depth sensor that reads shape and distance, never faces, lets the creatures turn toward a child walking past or waving. Nothing is recorded.
MossleA sleepy, velvet grazer that naps in the sun.
BrindleStands tall on two feet and greets everyone.
PebbitSix quick legs and four eyes for spotting crumbs.
FluvoA pearly drifter with wide-set, curious eyes.
RillowRibbons through reeds, banded in gold.
BloompGlides flat along the bottom, lamp-tail first.
ZephletHovers on coral petals, always a little out of breath.
SkirrowFour wings, six eyes, never lands for long.
VesperA dusk flyer with tall ears and a shy grin.
MarroHalf pond, half meadow, all mouth.
QuillipThree eyes, an indigo crest and paddles for skipping stones.
OmbuOne great eye, always on you.What children do
At the wall's hatchery, on a family's phone or on a bedside tablet, a child picks any two Genomies. The screens use pictures first, in English and Spanish.
The newcomer carries a real mix of both parents' genes, so it looks like family and no two are ever the same. It arrives with its own name.
The new Genomie moves into the pond on the big wall. The child keeps a card with its picture and code, and at the next appointment the code calls it to the front of the pond.
Each pair below was crossed by the Genomies genetics engine, the same one the hatchery will run. Every Genomie has 66 genes on 7 chromosomes, so a hatchling takes some features from each parent and is never a copy of either.
Why a living pond
At the UK's National Marine Aquarium, researchers measured visitors as a large tank was restocked. With more fish in the tank, people watched longer, their heart rates fell further and their moods lifted more. Most of the change came within the first five minutes.
Cracknell et al., Environment and Behavior, 2016 ↗ · a preliminary study
Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto tested an interactive waiting-room wall in a randomized trial of about 300 children. The hospital reports lower waiting anxiety in children and higher satisfaction among parents and clinic staff.
ScreenPlay, NCT01909726 ↗ · results as reported by the hospital
Roger Ulrich's theory of supportive design holds that a healthcare setting reduces stress when it gives people a sense of control, social support and positive distraction. Picking two Genomies is a choice a child gets to make. Hatching one with a parent or sibling is something they share. The pond is the distraction.
Ulrich, 1991 · tested in Andrade and Devlin, 2015 ↗
The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against shared plush toys in waiting rooms because they are hard to clean, and suggests families bring their own. A pond that children play with from a distance leaves nothing to pass between them.
AAP, infection prevention in pediatric ambulatory settings, 2017 ↗
Working together
Start with one room, connect a whole hospital, or make it a lasting gift.
Infusion · oncology · dialysis · therapy
A pilot wall in the clinic where children wait longest or return most often. Six to twelve months, so the children who come back every week get to know their Genomies.
Lobby · clinics · inpatient floors
Walls in the lobby and clinics share one pond, and children who cannot leave their rooms hatch from a bedside tablet. Their Genomie swims out onto the lobby wall for everyone to see.
Foundation · named gift · permanent
A permanent installation funded through your foundation, with a founding Genomie named with the donor. The pond keeps growing with every child who hatches into it.
For child life and care teams
Child life, infection prevention, IT and patient experience each have a say in what goes on a pediatric wall. The hospital edition is designed around their rules from the start, and each pilot begins with a review by those teams.
The hospital edition is in development. Its first pilot partner helps shape it.
Installation
Runs unattended on its own computer. The wall works offline; phone and bedside hatching use guest Wi-Fi, never the clinical network.
The artist
Ira Greenberg is an artist and professor who has grown organisms in code since 2004, moving from drawn computational anatomy to real-time works and evolving populations. He is the author of Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art (2007) and contributed to the Processing 1.0 development team. Protobyte Phylogeny was shown at Gray Area in San Francisco in fall 2026. The Proties and Genomies are his newest creatures, made for younger audiences.
Arrange a demonstration
A twenty-minute demonstration over video for your child life, patient experience or foundation team, or in person at your hospital.