In Silico

Florence Gouvrit

This work is the result of a research about the relationship between art, technology and science, when you introduce life concept.

In Silico, is an interdisciplinary artistic project which tries to search how to define “alive”, starting from an artificial life system. During the process of this work, it is explored the growth, communication and interaction systems of an organism into this environment. At the same time, this project suggests the visual approach to an environment, which doesn’t describe a “real world”. One of the objectives of this part is to ask and understand our relation with something that we perceive as “alive”.

Since the idea of generate a simulation system of artificial life growth, Florence, author of this project, decides to trace some symbols with which we associate life concept, transporting them into this context system. This, with the intention of provoking on the subject a recognition of artificial organisms to other signs/symbols that we generally associate with development prototypes of natural organisms.
In Silico becomes a simulated ecosystem where co-exists groups of different kinds of species, which cohabit and communicate each other with “agents” help.

Those organisms are generated by a designed structure, using math frames called “L systems”. The most important objective of these systems is to describe natural organisms growth. However, one of the latent function of those systems, is the possibility of reproducing and describing synthetic organisms.
The organisms grow up in real time, allowing their constant modification according to interaction that exists between them and their relation with environment. Giving that, these organisms communicate through agents, some relations and a collective behavior are produced, where the common end is to survive.

In Silico is a project of artificial life simulation, visualized in a three-dimensional way. It is not immersed or interactive. The gallery's exhibit was a kind of biosafety containment lab or laboratory window where the spectator could see the ecosystem development, without any possibility of manipulation.

Project created in the Virtual Reality Lab. at Multimedia Centre