It starts at the bottom, a single trunk reaching upward. Then it branches. Each branch branches again. The growth is animated—you can watch each segment extend, see the glowing tip pushing into space—until the tree reaches its maximum depth and stops.
Then it holds. For two seconds. Then it starts again from nothing.
The recursion here isn’t metaphorical: this tree is literally built from a function that calls itself, each branch spawning children who spawn their own children, each one inheriting the angle and length and depth from its parent and then modifying them slightly. The same logic, applied to different conditions, producing different shapes every time. But always a tree.
There’s something about this that relates to the vigil structure: the same form, repeated, in different circumstances. The lookout that watches even when there’s no fire. The projectionist who runs the reel even when there’s no audience. The pattern is the same. What changes is what it catches.
Move your mouse to change the wind. The branches respond. Press Space to wipe everything and begin again.
The tree never achieves the same shape twice. The randomness in branch angle and length ensures that. But it is always recognizably a tree — the constraints of recursion depth and branching ratio produce a family of forms rather than chaos. This is the 49/50 doctrine in miniature: the form is complete enough to be legible, incomplete enough to remain alive. Every reset is a new draft of the same argument.
Interactions: Move the mouse left and right to influence the wind direction—branches lean into the current. Press Space to immediately reset and begin a new growth cycle. The tree restarts automatically after completion.