Brief

BA project in Interactive Media at Designskolen Kolding. The subject is free to be defined.

Description

A small aquarium with a touch sensitive bottom is home to a race of virtual arthropods (#3). The creatures hunt each-other in a mortal competition for passing on their genes for the next generations (#4). You can put you hand into the simulation and influence the evolution by artificial selection or you can let it evolve on its own by natural selection. Generation after generation the creatures evolve towards an optimised species, or if influenced by outsiders, evolve more likeable features (#5) (#7).

Concept

The toy gives you a first hand experience with evolution by telling the dramatic story of natural selection in an interactive format. Evolutionary computation has been around since the 1970's, yet there has been no commercial breakthroughs in the field of evolutionary toys. It is my belief that digital world simulations inhabited by evolved beings will be popular objects in future homes, hopefully not replacing the ant farm and gold fish tank.

Process

Two prototypes where produced during the process. The first, consisting of a custom built multi-touch table, was built and exhibited at Halfmachine, an art event held at Christiania in Copenhagen in summer 2006 (#8). The second prototype was exhibited at the Kontur music festival in Copenhagen later the same year (#9). Adding water projection and sound, this prototype focused on the look and feel of the simulation (#10).

Evaluation

The algorithm of Life-like is very simple and the creatures can not evolve outside the constraints of an arthropod body structure. Deeper knowledge in programming and biology can no doubt improve the algorithm and the variety of creatures it can produce. Moving to 3D could be interesting as well.

The toy concept is very suitable for touch-screen tables, but could also fit the format of personal computers, game consoles and mobile devices. One could imagine an online community for sharing evolved creatures and challenging each-other in one on one battles.

Reflections in hind view

In the process working with genetic algorithms I rediscovered the beauty of natures own design tool. It is so simple, yet it has the capability to create all the complex life on our planet. As a fan of critical thinking I have a naive hope that toys like the one I present here will inspire a creationist believer or two. I agree with some, but not all, arguments in Richard Dawkins' and Sam Harris' verbal attack on religion.

I believe that computer games have a deep impact on the long term thoughts patterns of the gamers. If you grow up playing Sims by Maxis, you might unconsciously start to analyse your friends needs in terms of the Sim parameters 'Fun', 'Social', 'Comfort' and so on. If you grow up playing Spore by Maxis, you might have propensity to vote for presidents who advocate terra-forming Mars. Continuing this line of thoughts I'm uncomfortable with the possibility of inspiring social Darwinism.

Thanks

Daniel Øhrgaard, for helping out at the Half-Machine exhibition. Esra Gökçen, for helping me build the multi-touch box and making me smile. Søren Lyngsø Knudsen, for letting me use his music for the presentation video. Leona Sui-Ling Fang, for producing speech for the presentation video.

Tech

The project was realised in Processing.

Selected inspiration

Karl Sims
Craig Reynolds
Daniel Shiffman
Richard Dawkins