Artificial Nature as an Infinite Game

Haru Ji, http://haru.name
Graham Wakefield, http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~wakefield



Abstract:
One may recall experiences from childhood playing in the flow of a river or the path of marching insects to produce fascinating natural patterns and provoke deep insights: ludic investigations in an infinite game. ‘Artificial Nature as an Infinite Game’ is a transmodal, interactive, audiovisual, evolutionary art installation and multi-agent system. The system comprises a complex, dynamic and dissipative 3D virtual world interweaving physicochemical, biological and symbolic strata. Spectators can witness, control and discover beautiful, generative and abstract spatio-temporal patterns evolving from the behaviors of a-life agents, exploring and questioning beauty, creativity and life in nature and culture.


Short project description:
The project is an audio-visual art installation bringing forth a world of aesthetic play through the embodiment of complex multilayered and inter-modulating systems. The installation consists of a projection of a virtual world, which is sensitive to interaction via touch, movement, light and sound. The virtual world is a visualization of information flow in open dynamical and dissipative systems, interweaving geological, physico-chemical and biological strata. Spectators can witness, control and create beautiful, complex and generative patterns evolving from the behaviors of the species, while the organisms in turn interact with their open dynamic environment. As a spectator gives his/her input through the touch screen or other sensors, he/she may change local fields of the environment, landscape or physical laws, and actively observe how the feedback systems produce new behavioral patterns. Artificial Nature is an evolving research project; each instantiation and installation may offer distinct visual representations of the underlying system.


Artist Bio:
Haru Ji is a 3D sculptor, media & trans-artist researching the conjunction between biology and art, including evo-devo, growth rules, creativity in nature and culture, and computational sculpture. Including her solo virtual exhibition of script art works at the UCSB art gallery in Second Life, of which she was also the architect, she has shown multiple video installations, digital paintings, sculptural objects and installations with performance at many exhibitions and art festivals over the last ten years. Recently, she is working on the project “Artificial Nature as an Infinite Game,” to explore novel cross-disciplinary terrain through a realization of “A-Life worldmaking.” She is currently a Ph.D. student of Media Arts and Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Graham Wakefield is a composer, performer and media artist with a research focus in interactive and generative systems for electronic music and animation. He is currently a Ph.D. student of Media Arts and Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Graham attained an Master of Science in Media Arts and Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara USA, a Master in Composition from Goldsmiths College, University of London UK, and a Bachelors in Philosophy from the University of Warwick UK. His compositions and installations have been performed at many events in the UK and USA, and he has a number of publications on algorithmic composition using the Lua language, and sound spatialization using Ambisonics for virtual environments.