Christa Sommerer - Laurent Mignonneau
(spanish)
Life Spacies 2 is an interactive Artificial Life environment where users can create artificial creatures by typing text messages. The constant movement, feeding, mating and reproduction activities of the creatures result in a complex system that features complex interactions among creatures as well as users and creatures based on written text as a primary source of (genetic) information: Art as a living process.
According to Noam Chomsky, human language acquisition is based on a universal grammar that is genetically embedded within the human mind of all normal children, allowing them to learn their native languages naturally and seemingly effortlessly 1. It was also Chomsky who coined the phrase of “colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” Though this sentence, as Chomsky has shown, is grammatically correct, its meaning cannot be grasped through logic alone. Inspired by Chomsky’s sentence and based on the idea of using language as a genetic code and translating words or sentences into visual forms, we have created an interactive system for the Internet, called
Life Spacies 2 and an updated version, called Life Spacies II 3.
Life Spacies II is an artificial life environment where visitors to the installation can create artificial life forms. The graphical user interface consists of a web page where users can write text messages to create creatures or release text characters to feed the creatures. Our specifically designed “text-to-form editor” software translates the text messages into three-dimensional artificial life forms (=creatures) that come alive on a large projection screen. The “text-to-form editor”4 that translates the written text of a text message into the genetic code of a creature.
The “text-to-form editor” is based on the idea of linking the characters and the syntax of a text to specific parameters in the creature’s design. In a way similar to the genetic code in nature, letters, syntax and sequencing of the text are used to code certain parameters in the creature’s design functions. The text parameters and their combinations influence form, shape, color, texture and the number of bodies and limbs. 4
The constant movement, feeding, mating and reproduction activities of the creatures result in a complex system of interactions that can display the features of artificial evolution with selection favouring faster creatures. Additionally, the users’ input decisions on how to write the text messages and on how to feed the creatures also add constant changes to the system. As a result, a complex system is created that features complex interactions between creature, and creatures.
This project was developed at ATR Media Integration and Communications Research Lab, Kyoto, Japan.
Programming support: Roberto Lopez-Gulliver.
(1) N. Chomsky. “Language and Mind,” Nueva York: Hbj College & School Div, 1972.
(2) C. Sommerer y L. Mignonneau. “Life Spacies,” ICC Concept Book. Pp. 96–110. NTT–ICC Tokyo, 1997.
(3) C. Sommerer y L. Mignonneau. “Life Spacies: a genetic text-to-form editor on the Internet,” Actas de AROB ’99, 4º Congreso sobre vida artificial y robótica, pp.73–77. Beppu, Oita, Jan. 1999.
(4) C. Sommerer, L. Mignonneau y R. Lopez-Gulliver. “LIFE SPACIES II: from text to form on the Internet using language as genetic code,” Actas de ICAT ’99, 9º Congreso Internacionbal sobre Realidad Artificial y Tele-existencia, pp. 215–220. (Tokyo: Virtual Reality Society, 1999).
Christa Sommerer - Laurent Mignonneau
are internationally renowned media artist working in the field of interactive computer installation. They currently hold positions as Associate Professors at the IAMAS International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences in Gifu, Japan and as Professors at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria.
Sommerer and Mignonneau collaborate since 1992, their interactive artworks have been called “epoch making” (Toshiharu Itoh, NTT-ICC museum) for pioneering the use of natural interfaces to create intuitive and natural interaction and for linking dynamic and evolving image processes to user interaction parameters. Their collaboration has been influenced by the combination of their different fields of interest, including art, biology, modern installation, performance, music, computer graphics and communication.
These works have been shown in numerous exhibitions world-wide and are permanently installed in media museums and media collections around the world, including the Media Museum of the ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, the NTT-ICC InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, the CARTIER Foundation in Paris, the Millennium Dome in London, the Tokyo Metropolitan
Museum of Photography in Japan, the AEC Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria, the NTT Plan-Net in Nagoya, Japan, Shiroishi Multimedia Art Center in Shiroishi, Japan and the HOUSE-OF-SHISEIDO in Tokyo.
Sommerer and Mignonneau have published numerous research papers on Artificial Life, interactivity and interface design and lectured extensively at universities, international conferences, and symposia around the world. They hold a PhD degree from CAiiA-STAR University of Wales College of Newport, UK. Mignonneau and Sommerer have organized workshops and invited sessions at various international conferences, such as SCI2001 (Orlando, 2001), KES2001(Osaka, 2001), AlifeVII (Portland, 2000), KES2000 (Brighton, 2000) and ART-Science-ATR (Kyoto, 1997).
Sommerer is also an international Co-editor for the LEONARDO Journal, MIT Press and in 1998, together with Laurent Mignonneau, she edited a book on the collaboration of art and science called “Art@Science,” published by Springer Verlag Vienna/New York (ISBN 3-211-82953-9).
