When I started developing video games as an extension of animation, I realised that this new medium works according to a completely different set of rules. Video games are about real-time interaction, interactive simulations or whatever you want to call it. It’s a totally different paradigm.

It’s not recognised by the art world yet, but the video game is truly the most fascinating form of contemporary art. The basis of this art form is systems—it’s mathematics. The typical approach of using software to make games is that you have systems that are used to describe objects. I started to turn that around and became very interested in doing the opposite: having objects describe their systems. Particularly, the systems of nature.

The systems of nature are always there, but they are usually invisible to us because they are so close to us. We organise the world through language. It’s essentially a process of separating things—distinguishing things from one another—by cutting reality into little slices. The smarter you get, the greater variety of words you use, the less you see the congruity—or, rather, community—underneath things, the interconnectedness beneath the surface of visible life.

If I wanted to depict a tree, I would...