In Body No Body, I challenge the idea of human individualism. What is my body, and when is something or someone part of me? To do so, I use the four simple rules of the game of life.

The game of life is an infinite, two-dimensional grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, live or dead. The one-person game created by John Horton Conway represents a simplification of birth, death, development, and evolution in a population of living organisms. Each cell interacts with its eight neighbours according to 4 rules:

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

Shadow

For Body No Body I wrote my own set of rules to determine if something can be considered part of my body:

1. A cell that has no strong physical interaction with the body and does not consist of the same material dies.  
2. A cell that has a strong physical interaction with the body but does not consist of the same material lives on to the next generation. 
3. A cell that has no strong physical interaction with the body but consists of the same material lives on to the next generation.
4. A cell that has a strong physical interaction with the body and consists of the same material as the body expands the boundaries of the body and becomes an extra live cell. 

After creating a configuration of the cells that will be run in the game of life, I let the cells evolve. The videos end when the game of life stops, either when there are no cells left, or when when the game gets ‘’stuck’’ in a loop. What cells will remain after this game, what cells can survive the rules of this life? 

Clipped nails