Game of life

The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is a widely known example of a cellular automaton. here's is an example, ripped form wiki, (you might recognise the text from here)

The "game" is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves.
The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, live or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are directly horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent. At each step in time, the following transitions occur:

1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
2. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
3. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

The initial pattern constitutes the seed of the system. The first generation is created by applying the above rules simultaneously to every cell in the seed—births and deaths occur simultaneously, and the discrete moment at which this happens is sometimes called a tick (in other words, each generation is a pure function of the preceding one).
The rules continue to be applied repeatedly to create further generations.

Ever since its publication, Conway's Game of Life has attracted much interest, because of the surprising ways in which the patterns can evolve. Life provides an example of emergence and self-organization. It is interesting for physicists, biologists, economists, mathematicians, philosophers, generative scientists and others to observe the way that complex patterns can emerge from the implementation of very simple rules. The game can also serve as a didactic analogy, used to convey the somewhat counter-intuitive notion that "design" and "organization" can spontaneously emerge in the absence of a designer. For example, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett has used the analogue of Conway's Life "universe" extensively to illustrate the possible evolution of complex philosophical constructs, such as consciousness and free will, from the relatively simple set of deterministic physical laws governing our own universe.

Julia the artist

Julia the artists exsists to create interventions in the lives of the other characters, to encourage them to make art works to express how they feel.
Julia asks the character to make a piece of music, a poem or a visual piece of art. The characters respond by using any material they might have gathered from the internet (words,audio or pictures), and make art using a variety of self generative processes, guided by their personalities.
For instance T.V tank might make poetry from television reviews, or a piece of music by using audio recorded from his favourate program, or a piece of expressionist art from clips of television programs or pictures of his favorite t.v personalities. Julia wants to encourage him to step away from his all encompassing urge to watch television. Indeed all of the characters art is therapy in some way or another, Mr Acker can work through his anger issues from engrossing himself in artistic practice.

Julia personality and rules of engagement are based upon the prionciples expressed in the book "The artist way" by Julia Cameron.

heres the blurb......

With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan lead you through a comprehensive 12-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity.

This book links creativity to spirituality by showing how to connect with the creative energies of the universe, and has, in the four years since its publication, spawned a remarkable number of support groups for artists dedicated to practising the exercises it contains.

The book contains a 12 step program the artist follows over 12 weeks which is designed to free then of negative blocks in order to unleash creativity.
The book contains anecdotes,reflections  and affirmations for artists as well as excises in artistic practice , and valuable questions for would be artists to ask themselves to aid them on the way to self discovery. Here is an example of some creative affirmations.......

1. I am a channel for God's creativity, and my work comes from good.
2. My dreams come from god and god has the power to accomplish them.
3. As I create and listen, I will be led.
4. Creativity is the creators will for me.
5. My creativity heals myself and others.
6. I am allowed to nurture my artist
7. Through the use of a few simple tools, my creativity will flourish.
8. Through the use of creativity, I serve god.
9. My creativity always leads me to truth and love

Each week the artist is given tasks to complete. Stream of consciousness writing is encouraged as well as the artist date, a technique where once a week "Artist Me Time" is taken where the artist is given a practical task to complete. Together with exercises designed to change the artists old way of thinking,such as listing three old enemies of your creative self worth (called monsters), to acknowledge creative injuries and grieve them. "Taking your artist for a walk" is another popular exercise.
As Julia's personality develops so does the characters art.

TV Tank

TV Tank likes to watch television. He's not that interested in what other people want to do, and is really focused on getting his own way. TV tank can look up television guides and get obsessed by by a certain program at a certain time, which is his main topic of conversation.
Julia the artist tries engage TV tank into dialog but TV tank keeps the conversation going back to his television program he wants to watch, TV Tank tries to get sophisticated with his persuasion,realizing the same persistent approach wont always get him is own way. Tank starts off by doggedly just saying "I want to watch crimewatch at 9pm on BBC1", until he gets his own way. Occasionally he wont get his own way so tries a different technique, "Oh I've heard that Crimewatch on BBC1 at 9pm is very good, shall we watch it?" and so on. Incidentally TV tank is only really interested in getting his own way, when he eventually gets to watch his tv program he interrupts continually with statements such as "who's that?", "oh i like this", "have i seen this before?"
 Julia the artist tries to get TV Tank away from watching television, and into making art. Tank does comply but only by making art works about television programs.



Tv Tank makes his music and visuals from stuff he gathers when he watches telly.
He grabs the audio from the programming he's watching and transforms it by granulising individual sounds and applying process to each of the pieces. The order of the way he re-structures the sounds is determined by the conversational structure he plays out with Julia the artist. Each statement Tank chooses has a effect on the sound. Julia has little influence in the production of the music, as Tank is Tank and can't be reasoned with. Tank being Tank also enjoys hard,brutal pounding techno, he likes to play along with his creations by adding drum structures in the style of his favourite German Techno.

Tanks visual art is also very singular, he tends to find a process he enjoys and sticks to it, applying it to the screen grabs he has gathered. When bored of one process Tank moves onto his next.

have a listen to tanks music here

have a look at tanks art here

Tanks personality is again modeled on the book" Dealing with people you can't stand."

here's what its got to say about tanks.....

Tanks. Pushy and confrontational, tanks come at us with guns blazing when they think we're causing them problems. Explanations won't calm them, and counterattacking could lead to all-out war.

What to do: Let the tank vent for up to 60 seconds. Remain calm and maintain eye contact -- looking down or backing away might make you seem weak or fearful, which will make the tank respect you even less. If the attack still hasn't ended, firmly repeat his/her name until he quiets. Then summarize his main point to show that you were listening, and explain why his interest is best served by calling off the attack. Tanks tend to be pragmatists, so this should work.

Example: "Dad. Dad. I know you don't like my long hair and the way I dress. But I flew all the way here for us to enjoy each other as a family. We can do that. Or I can leave right now. Your choice."

Mr Acker

Mr Acker wants to learn about al the stuff in the world. To help him achieve this he uses this website

Visual Dictionary

The visual dictionary is a visualization of 53,464 english nouns arranged by meaning, each pixel on the screen represents an "thing" in the world, wether it be a person,plant, object or concept. When a pixel is clicked on a description and picture of the noun is displayed

Mr Acker choose a pixel at random, reads out the description of the noun and chats about how much he likes that particular thing. At first Mr Acker has a real lust for life enjoying all the things he finds, but once in a while,at random, he finds something that makes him angry. When he finds this "angry noun" he remembers the description and any other object he comes into contact with after he cross references its description with his list of words that make him angry. Eventually from a starting position of liking everything he comes in contact with he end ups feeling jaded, not liking more and more stuff until he hates most of what we see around us. Although Mr Acker can justify being angry at things that remind him of other things, but he cannot justify what sent him off hating in the first place. Using feedback, from this original outburst, his anger , having gone through a few generations, seems unfocused, lashing out random subjects, although his pathology will trace the development of his negativity from an incongruous start.

When Mr Acker comes into contact with Julia the artist he generally makes art about what makes him angry so the genesis of his anger is reveled. Once in a while though the Mr Acker will make an artwork about things he likes, adding to his unpredictable nature.
When Mr Acker comes to make his music he really tries to follow Julia advice...he tries to forget about his grievances and try's to use the material in a controlled manner.
Mr Ackers style could be called retentive, he lets out little squeals and gasps of what has annoyed him, tries to keep a lid on his anger. Unfortunately for Mr Acker his subconcious feeds back on the escaping rage and builds upon it, repeating and transforming it into a cacophony of Mr Ackers id screaming.
The Mr Acker instrument is made from 8 sound granulating units, capable of being recorded into. Mr Acker plays a short section of the sound he has gathered and the granulating units feedback, improvising on the sound. Mr Acker can also record off his audio rage and re-orginise it with his current melody,
Mr Acker gathers the sound for searching the internet for sounds with key word descriptions of what he has got annoyed with.
Mr Ackers visual art is achieved through a reductive process. From composited images of items he hates (he searches google image bank for pictures) he subtracts images of things he likes, trying to erase the feelings of hatred with something positive.

Listen to Mr Ackers music here

to see some of Mr Ackers Art look here

Mr Ackers personality has been developed from the book "Dealing with people you can't stand"

The Character of Mr Acker is based on the grenade type of personality. Here's what it says about grenades .

Grenades. Grenades explode unexpectedly, with little provocation. A grenade might begin a rant by blaming you for a specific problem, but by the end, he's likely to be venting about things that seem unrelated or even irrational. Unlike tanks, who focus on specific problems, grenades are mainly in search of attention.

What to do: Fight fire with fire. Get the grenade's attention by raising your voice to match his, calling his name and waving your hands in front of you (without getting too close to him). Keep your tone friendly as you do this. Use rant-interruption statements, such as "I don't want you to feel that way. No one should have to feel that way." Address the portion of the grenade's rambling rant that matters most to him, if it can be identified. (Often this central problem will be that he's not getting the attention he feels he deserves.)

Example: "We care about all the effort you put into this."

If appropriate, add that you love this person. Grenades need to cool off before they can talk rationally, so suggest meeting later if more discussion is required. If you must deal with a grenade regularly, learn to avoid the topics that tend to set him off.