»Life Spacies II« 
Light Box
Light Box
© 1999, Christa SOMMERER & Laurent MIGNONNEAU
Keywords
Information
(collective) Sommerer / Mignonneau >
»Life Spacies II«, 1999 - 1999
Co-Workers & Funding:
supported by ATR Media Integration and Communications Research Lab, Kyotohttp://beallcenter.uci.edu/shift/games/lifespacies.html
http://www.interface.ufg.at/christa-laurent/WORKS/artworks/LifeSpaciesII/LifeSpaciesII.html
Technology
Hardware
1 computer with dual video output1 video projector
1 computer keyboard
1 computer mouse
2 powered Loud Speakers
1 flat monitor screen
1 pedestal for the
1 room
Interface
1 computer keyboard1 computer mouse
2 powered Loud Speakers
Software
3D forms generator algorithmText to 3D form algorithm
Text to speech software (third party)
Descriptions & Essays
"Life SpaciesII" was originally developed for the ICC InterCommunication Museum in Tokyo as part of the museum's permanent collection. It is an artificial life environment where remotely located visitors on the Internet and the on-site visitors to the installation at the ICC Museum in Tokyo can interact with each other through evolutionary forms and images. Through the "Life SpaciesII" web page, people all over the world interact with the system; by simply typing and sending an email message to the "Life SpaciesII" web site (http://www.ntticc.co.jp/~lifespacies), one can create one's own artificial creature.
We developed a special text-to-form coding system that enables us to use written text as genetic code and translate it into visual creatures. In a way similar to the genetic code in nature, letters, syntax and sequencing of the text is used to code certain parameters in the creature's design functions. Form, shape, color, texture and the number of bodies and limbs are influenced by the text parameters. As there is a great variation in the texts sent by different people, the creatures themselves also vary greatly in their appearance.
As soon as a message is sent, the produced creature starts to live and move around in the "Life SpaciesII" environment. Depending on the complexity of the written text message the creatures body design and its ability to move is determined. Some creatures might move very fast whereas others might be slower. Creatures also look for food and aim to eat text characters that can be interactively released by the visitors: creatures always eat the same characters as contained in their genetic code. For example "John" creature will only eat "J", "o", "h" and "n". Since other creatures might want to eat the same characters as well, competition among creatures for certain types of food will occur. Creatures also might starve and die if they do not succeed to catch enough text characters. On the other hand if a creature has eaten enough food (=text characters) it will look for a mating partner and bear a child. Offspring creatures will then carry the genetic code of the parent creatures and live and interact with the other creatures in "Life SpaciesII."
CHRISTA SOMMERER & LAURENT MIGNONNEAU
Literature
Sommerer, Christa and Laurent Mignonneau. »Life Spacies II.« In Microwave – International Media Art Festival 2001, exhibition catalog, ed. E. Pau and T. Kong (Hong Kong: Microwave, 2001), 8-9., edited by E. Pau and T. Kong, 8-9. Hong Kong: Microwave, 2000.
Sommerer, Christa and Laurent Mignonneau. »Life Spacies II.« In Ars Electronica 2000 - Next Sex, edited by Gerfried Stocker and Christine Schöpf, 392. Vienna, New York: Springer Verlag, 2000.
Sommerer, Christa and Laurent Mignonneau. »Life Spacies.« In Siggraph’99 Conference Abstracts and Applications, edited by , 170. New York: ACM, 1999.
Sommerer, Christa and Laurent Mignonneau. »Life Spacies: A Genetic Text-to-form Editor on the Internet.« In AROB’99 International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics Conference Proceedings, edited by , 73-77. Oita: Oita University, 1999.
Sommerer, Christa and Laurent Mignonneau and Lopez-Gulliver,Roberto. »LIFE SPACIES II: From Text to Form on the Internet Using Language
as Genetic Code.« In ICAT´99 9th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Tele-Existence, Conference Proceedings, edited by , 215-220. Tokyo: 1999.
Sommerer, Christa and Laurent Mignonneau. »VERBARIUM and Life Spacies: Creating a Visual Language by Transcoding
Text into Form on the Internet.« In VL '99 Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages, edited by IEEE Computer Society Washington, 90. Washington, DC, USA: IEEE Press, 1999.
Sommerer, Christa and Laurent Mignonneau. »Life Spacies II - Instalacion interactiva de realidad virtual.« In Cibervisión 99: Arte Ciencia Nuevas Tecnologias: I Muestra Internacional, edited by Karin Öhlschlager, 42-43. Madrid: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 1999.
Sommerer, Christa and Laurent Mignonneau. »Life Spacies.« In ICC Concept Book: Exploring the Future of Imagination, edited by K. Yahagi and InterCommunication Center, 96-101. Tokyo: ICC Tokyo, 1997.
Exhibitions & Events
2011
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2008
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2007
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2006
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2002
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