A possible road for the emergence of complexity in artificial inhomogeneous chemical systems is analyzed. We build a reaction-diffusion model inspired from a surfactant-based scheme leading to the formation of micelles and vesicles. Our model only relies on autocatalysis and the existence of a critical concentration. Depending on the parameter values of the extended dynamical system, this simple model already accounts for typical behaviors of living organisms. In particular, competition and different types of symbiotic relationships are reproduced.