The Path

An artwork about life and the paths it ventured down, generated from the Open Tree of Life: a database of 2.3 million species and their genetic origins

Topic

Genetic Taxonomy

Medium

Data visualisation, artwork

Data Source

The Open Tree of Life

Technology

Python, MySQL

Released

February 2016

Exhibited at

Art Heist, 2016

Art Attacks the Little Guy, 2016

The Path is a visualisation of the draft publication of the Open Tree of Life, a database of 2.3 million species and their genetic origins published in September 2015.

Each leaf in the image represents one or more species. The branches, trunks, shadows and paths show how those species are grouped. The symbols on the trees represent the types of organisms there.

Within this image lies all organisms that science had placed on the Tree of Life at the time, from bugs to bacteria, from algae to humanity.