REFLECTION
Throughout previous projects a concern with investigating rules emerged naturally within my iterative processes. When contemplating digital ‘space’ in particular, I have focused on the notion that by using particular platforms or merely engaging within their boundaries, an individual is subject to the often uncontemplated force of rules; pre-designed conditions for use to which an individual must knowingly or unknowingly prescribe.
In examining and challenging spaces such as the Downloads folder and YouTube, I have sought to maintain a position that, in allowing these human-designed spaces to become commonplace in our daily lives, a right or need emerges to understand the way they operate and the rules to which we are subjected, regardless of an individual’s level of technical expertise. As such, my interrogations of existing systems were driven primarily by concepts graspable through ‘face value’ use; with a particular focus of aesthetic rules on use and context, my questions of each space were asked within the limits of my ability to disrupt the spaces in question on a constructional level.
In my approach to the ‘100 screengrabs’ project I sought to address this limitation by constructing a system myself, so as to better understand the processes involved in the creation of systems, as well as to provide a more direct and authentic means through which to disrupt, modify and test the effects of various unseen rules. Using John Horton Conway’s ‘Game of Life’ — a cellular automaton that uses a rules-based algorithm to simulate patterns of biological life —as a visual starting point, I constructed a system that existed purely of rules, producing visuals based on a number of variables modified between each of the 100 instances of the game being played.
Whereas the game itself uses a fixed ruleset as a way of interrogating processes of nature — an idea which in many ways reflects the notion of a ‘computational metaphor’ in which biology is communicated through a lexicon drawing on computer logic and structure — my iterations sought to examine the processes themselves free from a wider cultural or scientific context. As such, I have iterated largely through ad hoc rearrangements of the starting ruleset; the ‘totalistic’ (Jencks & Silver, 1972: 54) state of each ad hoc reformation is represented as a still image.
The Game of Life is designed as a ‘zero-player game’ and consists of an automatic process in which progression is dictated by rules and their variables; starting the operation of the process serves as the only ‘player’ input. As such, modifying these rules creates a fundamental shift in the system’s progression, including whether any progression can occur at all. Whilst in this case each of the produced still images conform to a pre-defined aesthetic standard (the choice of grid, colours, shapes etc), the overarching importance of the visual component of this project comes from its role in highlighting the potential diversity of outcomes produced simply by modifying a ruleset. Through further investigation of these concepts I hope to use a more relatable visual display with a stronger connection to the process of its creation, to in some way bridge the gap between an intangible concept such as a ‘rule’ and the actuality of life.
BRIEF
Over the next four weeks I will seek to further address my position that within the context a system or ‘space’, the inhabitants of said space have a right to understand, engage with and if necessary challenge the pre-designed rules and conditions of use/inhabitance to which they are inherently subject.
I will seek to address this through the creation of an iterative system through which a tangible representation of rules can be created. Through this my aim will be to make the rules in question ‘visible’ where they would not be otherwise, as well as to serve as an experiential bridge between a concept or technological construct, and a more physical actuality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jencks, C. & Silver, N. (1972) Adhocism: The Case for Improvisation
Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press