Why don’t humans have patterned texture like animals?
Diffusion short film by Kouhei Nakama was inspired by his encounter with mathematical formulas, Reaction-Diffusion Systems. It is reported that patterns generated by the systems have similarities to natural patterns of animals, insects and plants. It is also pointed out that this pattern could be the basis of the morphogenesis of an organism.
“Just after the encounter with the formulas, I had a question in my mind. Why isn’t human skin covered with patterns? As I researched, I found that human skin is also covered with the pattern, Blaschko’s lines. The stripes are ordinarily invisible with the naked eye, because they are very vague.
I consider that there is the possibility that people could obtain patterns like animals in the future. In the future, if we have a drastic environmental change we would need to recombine our DNA with different species’ for protection. Consequently, human skin could gain patterns.”
Nakama didn’t use any photographs or any hand-drawn illustration in his video: all patterns and the skin texture were programming generated and the human model was made by using a computer. In the video, human beings have DNA transferred from other natural organisms such as luminescent coral and a shell absorbing metal into its body.
