Ira Greenberg Studio

Artificial life · generative systems · since 2004

Living worlds, editions and objects grown from code.

Everything the studio makes, in one place: 25 works and projects, from the first Protobytes in 2004 to the evolving world that premiered at Gray Area in 2026, and the prints, lanterns and kites now being made from its creatures.

A translucent artificial organism trailing pastel tendrils against a dark starfield
Protobyte Phylogeny · ProtoPortraits system view, 2026

Living worlds5

Artificial-life systems that run in real time. Creatures are born, feed, pair and evolve on screen, and no two hours are alike.

A crowded population of protobytes swimming over a sandy seabed in the Phylogeny world
2026Premiered 2026

Protobyte Phylogeny

An evolving population of artificial organisms. Premiered at Gray Area, San Francisco, October 28 – November 1, 2026, as one of 11 projects in Scaling Intelligence: Modal × Gray Area Commissions. Visitors bred creatures that entered the living world.

iragreenberg.org/work/protobyte-phylogeny
Varied artificial organisms swimming over a blue seabed in the ProtoWorld aquarium
2026Live

ProtoWorld

The world behind Protobyte Phylogeny, open in any browser: a shared aquarium of protobytes living out their lives.

world.ij8.ai
Comatella tortuosa, a violet and amber protobyte, in a recorded studio study
2026By commission

ProtoTanks

Living worlds commissioned for a wall: artificial-life artworks for homes, hotels, offices and public spaces.

prototanks.com
A tank of furred, brightly colored protobytes among feathery plants
2026Live

ProtoHabitats

Six public tanks, each a whole world built in one material studio: fur, ink, spines, woven textile and more.

studios.protobytes.art/habitats
Four tanks from the material studios: blocky kraft, liquid glass, bioluminescent and paper
2025–26Live

Open Studios

Thirteen material studios, from ink and paper to scales, liquid and bioluminescence. Each renders protobytes in its own medium.

studios.protobytes.art

Prints & objects6

Protobytes leaving the screen: portraits, printed plates, specimens and objects made from individual creatures and their genomes.

Spiralina florida, a green and gold spiraled protobyte, in a high-resolution portrait
2026Preview edition

ProtoPortraits

Fourteen creatures from the ProtoWorld preview, rendered at 115.2 megapixels. Inspect the native detail or download the full-resolution files.

studios.protobytes.art/portraits
The Engraved Sea plate: an engraving-style seabed with a scannable code
2026Live · AR

Living Plates

Printed plates that come alive through a phone camera: the tank swims behind the paper. The Engraved Sea and Radiolarius aurata.

prototanks.com/plate
A 3D-printed protobyte with white and dark spotted spines
2026Printed

Protobyte Specimens

Creatures evolved in software, then printed in full color on a Bambu Lab H2C: each specimen carries its own genome record.

specimens.protobytes.art
Render of a glowing white lantern casting a creature shadow in a dark roomRender
2026In development

Protobyte Lanterns

Shadow lanterns in which a protobyte, rebuilt from its genome, turns slowly beside a single point of light.

lanterns.protobytes.art
Render of three creature kites flying in a pale evening skyRender
2026In development

Protobyte Kites

Train, star and soft kites read from the genomes of protobytes.

kites.protobytes.art
Illustration of a sculptural protobyte with teal and cream petal formsIllustrative
2027–28Roadmap

ProtoMax

From 3D-printed protobytes to visible anatomy, robotic bodies and embedded intelligence.

studios.protobytes.art/protomax

Editions & exhibitions11

The on-chain years, 2022–2024, when the studio practice took center stage: generative and AI works released with fx(hash), Bright Moments, BrainDrops, Feral File and others.

An iridescent tangle of tubular forms in an abandoned industrial hall
2022fx(hash)

Glomularus

The genesis series: generative artificial-life forms extending the Protobytes system through three.js.

iragreenberg.org/work/glomularus
Glossy blue and green tubular forms in a long corridor
2022–24Tezos

Generative Editions

Eighteen generative projects released as editions, including the first work built on the ProtoByte library.

iragreenberg.org/work/generative-editions
A red tentacled creature-head in the pose of an old master portrait
2022Emergent Properties

The Oracles

Long-form generative AI portraits connecting pictorial history, code and emergent variation.

iragreenberg.org/work/the-oracles
A dense thicket of colored rods and leaf-like forms
2022Strata Gallery, Santa Fe

Toward a Post-Computational Practice

A solo exhibition joining drawing, painting, computation and emergence as one artistic process.

iragreenberg.org/work/toward-a-post-computational-practice
A golden misty forest floor with red flowers and small creatures
2023EXPANDED.ART, Berlin

BEASTS

An expansive universe made through code, generative AI and drawings of biological and psychological beasts.

iragreenberg.org/work/beasts
A towering brass clockwork machine in golden light
2023Bright Moments, Venice Beach

Ancient Automata

Algorithmic hallucinations in which technological, mythological, microscopic and monumental forms collide.

iragreenberg.org/work/ancient-automata
A Renaissance-style figure whose robe dissolves into circuitry
2023Bright Moments, London

Materia Moda

A generative reflection on maker, coder, model, beauty, fragmentation and technological agency.

iragreenberg.org/work/materia-moda
A grid of eight textured abstract compositions
2023BrainDrops

Mappings

A generative project organized through repeated motifs, palettes and controlled compositional variation.

iragreenberg.org/work/mappings
An underwater reef view with an open oyster and pearl
2023Feral File

The Dorises

A participatory artwork with Marina Zurkow in which computational oysters connect collection, marine ecology and restoration.

iragreenberg.org/work/the-dorises
Close-up of a thickly painted face in red and ochre
2023Tender × Artmatr, Brooklyn

Painted Heads

AI-generated portraits translated into physical oil paintings by Artmatr’s robotic painting process.

iragreenberg.org/work/painted-heads
A fractured tower in hot pink, orange and teal
2024Gazelli Art House, London

CyberStructures

Computational structures assembled through image generation, chromatic fracture and architectural instability.

iragreenberg.org/work/cyberstructures

Origins3

Where it started: a painter writing code, and the first protobytes.

Three 2004 protobytes: blue flame, spectral jellyfish and floral flame forms on black
2004Archive

Protobytes, 2004

The first protobytes: 22 ActionScript forms grown from nested mathematical expressions. The 2004 statement already hoped for genetic algorithms.

iragreenberg.org/archive/
A graphite drawing of densely knotted, looping lines
1988–2004Archive

Paintings, drawings & early code

Three decades of work recovered from the studio’s earlier sites: paintings, drawings, figure studies and code.

iragreenberg.org/archive
ProcessingCreative Coding and Computational Art2007 · 2009 · 2013
2007–13Books

Processing books

Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art (2007), among the first comprehensive books on Processing, and two further volumes.

iragreenberg.org/writing-talks

The studio

Ira Greenberg Studio is the working studio of the artist Ira Greenberg. Trained as a painter (BFA Cornell, MFA University of Pennsylvania), Ira has spent more than thirty years in creative computation: he was invited onto the Processing 1.0 team by Casey Reas and Ben Fry and wrote three books on Processing.

Since 2004 the studio’s central work has been Protobytes: artificial organisms that are born, breed and evolve in code. Today they live in real-time worlds and on walls, and increasingly leave the screen as portraits, printed specimens, lanterns and kites.

Ira Greenberg, Professor and Chair, Center of Creative Computation, Division of Design, SMU.

Commissions & collectinginquiry@protobytes.art