“An Immersive Game of Life”

2020
installation

artist statement

This installation is an immersive reimagining of Conway's Game of Life, a cellular automaton that illustrates how a few simple rules can shape a complex, living, and interconnected world.  This experience augments the original simulation by making it tangibly interactive, visually lush, and responsive to human presence. On a grid where each cell is alive or dead, these rules define how cells perish (as by overcrowding or starvation) or emerge (as by birth).  The intent is to present both the agency and self-automating capacities of natural systems and the persistence of human action within those systems.

experience

As well-described by Mission Local: “In the modern interpretation of the game, one stands in an empty U-shaped space, surrounded and grounded in a projected world. You’re small, looking up at fungi of varying heights, scattered patches of digital plant growth. The landscape reacts to people and configurations—more people and movement and the growth emerges, existing life twitches to new heights, weather changes, colors grow more vibrant. When there’s too many people, the ecosystem is overwhelmed, it darkens, life recedes. The balance of this system is not readily apparent and it’s tellingly difficult to understand your role and impact.”