Body No Body is a set
of video works inspired by the game of life, 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.
In Body No Body I
challenge the idea
of human individualism. What is my body, when is something or someone part of me? I used the idea of
4 simple rules of the game of life to write my own set of rules to determine if something can be considered part of my body or not - body, no body.
1. If the cell has no
strong physical interaction with the body and the cell does not consist of the
same material, it is not part of the body and the cell ‘’dies’’
2. If the cell has a strong physical interaction with the body and the two parts do not consist of the same
material, it is part of the body and the
cell ‘’stays alive’’
3. If the cell has no strong physical interaction with the body and the cell consists of the same material, it is part of the body and the cell ‘’stays alive’’
4. If the cell has a strong physical interaction with the body and the cell consists of the same material as the body, it expands the boundaries of the body and the
cell ‘’grows’’.
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?