Project Brief: The goal of this exercise is to explore the relationship between form, culture and code. In this exploration, we can see an emergence of patterns based on simple rules. Modify existed sketch to come up with new design materials and social insights. This balance is a reminder of what it means to explore life within larger ecosystems, and how that may play out with artificial agents and data.

Tool: Processing

Duration: 1 week

Credits: Joan Soler-Adillon, John Horton Conway

Modifying the grid size - Does the grid represent anything in game of life?

Instead of a big screen displaying all cells, I modified it to only show one small part of the whole ecosystem. No matter how I modify the code, it will always show a simple rule of nature - the only thing that will never change in the world is that everything is changing; No matter how fast it is, how unpredictable it is. 

Consider the overall balance between live and dead cells. How do grid size and cell presence affect the game duration?

If the grid size is smaller, the game will end faster, and there will be an end instead of infinity. However, sometimes the living cell may form a loop that keeps changing in the adjacent blocks. There are 3 ways to define how this game(my modification) ends. 1. Everything becomes actionless(both living and dead cells). 2. Most cells become actionless and some cells are looping themselves. 3. All living cells are looping themselves. There is also a small possibility that all living cells die in the end. 

Version 1 rules to the Game of Life:

If people who are closed to the sick man, they will get infected(die)

If people are cured, the infection will stop(people remain living)

Some diseases will randomly happen.

If a healthy person is closed to lots of sick people (75percent surrounding him), he is likely to get infected.

How do variable changes (opacity, cell size, color, etc.) affect or change our understanding of the information or experience?

I made changes regarding size, color, frame rate, and shape. The result shows that at the beginning of the video, it is hard to see the image is an organic flower in motion. Instead, it is presented in a mysterious, unknown image that looks like nature. As the video continues, the video background becomes colorful, while most cells remain static condition, which gives a feeling of the static cells are changing color and slightly moving around. 

What I tried to do with the code is to show that people’s lives might be taken away by diseases. Some can be controlled and some cannot. And all people’s life is different(as shown in the video background color changes).

Version 2 rules to the Game of Life:

Units that lives near around more than 3 other units, they will die;

When units die, the dead body(transparent block) will remain.

the dead body will stay at the moment when they die

All units only have 1 life to live. if they die, they cannot reborn.

How do variable changes (opacity, cell size, color, etc.) affect or change our understanding of the information or experience?

I would like to show that all living cells only live once It is important to keep reminding ourselves to treasure each moment of the world. I modified the grid size and the for loop in the processing code in order to make it last permanently after units die. In order to preserve the moments they die, I modified the color mode as well as the frame rate.

The visual effect looks like a maze since all of the dead cell cannot reborn and it is rare to see a living cell die. I modified the time rate number of how cells born and die in the processing code to create the maze visualization.

Version 3 rules to the Game of Life:

If people are closer to the sick cells, they will die

if more cells are close to infected cells, they will die

if infected cells are surrounded by healthy cells, the infection will stop

Initiated sick cells are on the left and all healthy cells are on the right

How do variable changes (opacity, cell size, color, etc.) affect or change our understanding of the information or experience?

This one is similar to the rule version 1. In stead of tiny expansion of the infected cells, the infection expansion of . version 3 are largely involved. However, the infection will stop when it reach around the center.

I modified the color, size, frame rate, shapes as well as the for loop. i modified the equation in order to make the right side wouldn’t get infected.