Info

Move the cursor in the frame while pressing the mouse button or move your finger on the touch screen. You will quickly understand how this mini-program works. Wilderness also makes sounds, so it’s worth turning on the speakers or headphones.

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The program, in the initially empty window, draws various trees using a recursive function – one that calls itself. In programming, this approach is often used to work with objects like trees – the ones that have self-similarity (when the smaller part of the object resembles the larger one. The most known forms of this type are fractals).

The forest we create is infinite – new trees obscure older ones, which gradually disappear in the background. Such infinite (though in a different way than this one) forests appear from time to time in media art, e.g. in the classic work of Der Wald by Tamás Waliczky.