Autopoiesis

Animated self-portrait of the artist.

"The term autopoiesis (from Greek, Modern αὐτo- (auto-), meaning 'self', and ποίησις (poiesis), meaning 'creation, production') refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself. The term was introduced in 1972 by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to define the self-maintaining chemistry of living cells. Since then the concept has been also applied to the fields of cognition, systems theory and sociology." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis