Cora is a collaborative web experience conceived at CODAME ART+TECH. It lets participants experience themselves as a coral holobiont particle system — connected in real time with others. Participants experience and modify modelled systems to build an intuition for alternative nature-based futures.
A gentle, expansive answer to “what is the New Human?” Not one body, but a holobiont. A coral.
![cora[0].sf print at Grey Area, San Francisco](cora/hero.jpg)
The concept
The coral holobiont — the coral animal together with all of its symbiotic organisms — is one of the most interdependent living systems on earth. No single organism could survive alone; the whole is radically greater than the sum of its parts.
Cora takes this as a framing to explore new ways of human connection to each other, the environment, and as an experiential learning tool for understanding complex ecosystems and how we relate to them.
The experience runs entirely in the browser. Body tracking happens locally via camera, with pose data shared across participants through websockets — no installation, no downloads. The work premiered at CODAME × Milan Design Week, April 2026.
Research
Research is ongoing, involving coral scientists, anthropologists and ecosystem modellers mainly connected to the University of Bristol.
Systems modelling
Cora can be used to get a feel for ecosystems, natural capital and culture built in harmony with the holobiont.
Experience the work
Cora[0] — the zeroth element of a minimum viable regenerative art — is also shown at CODAME ART+TECH. View on CODAME ↗
Credits
- Concept & design
- Jon Somerscales
- Multiplayer web game backend
- Enrico "Mad" Paiardi
- 3D models
- Smithsonian Institution
- Presented at
- CODAME ART+TECH Milan (Google HQ) & San Francisco (Grey Area)