Artificial Nature as an Infinite Game  (무한게임으로서의 인공생태계)

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


터치 스크린과 웹 카메라 그리고 숨겨진 마이크를 이용하여 벽면에 보이는 3사원 인공생태계 속에 생명체를 만들고, 소형키보드(네비게이터)를 통해 그 생태계를 탐험해 보세요.


<Artificial Nature as an Infinite Game>은 물리화학적, 생물학적, 그리고 기호학적인 세 개의 층으로 엮여 다이내믹하게 에너지가 순환하는 3차원의 가상세계입니다. 관람객은 인공생명체들의 행동을 관찰함으로써 실시간으로 생성되는 다양한 생태계의 패턴들을 발견하고, 그것들을 직간접적으로 조절할 수 있습니다. 이러한 인공생태계에 대한 경험은 관람자가 자연과 문명, 현실공간과 가상공간에서의 아름다움, 창조성, 그리고 생명의 같음과 다름에 대해 질문하고 답을 구해보는 시간이 될 수 있을 것입니다.


또한 이 곳에는 ‘장애’라 규정지어진 생명체는 애초에 존재하지 않습니다. 관람객의 손과 입을 통해 만들어진 다양한 가상 생명체에는 처음부터 누가 더 우월하고 열등하고를 따지는 기준자체가 존재하지 않기 때문입니다.


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.