GEV IV : Conflict (v)

A 5m Immersive projection exploring micro-simulation models and military behaviour.

For those of us enthralled by simple maths and amateur coding at the millennium, the promise of Artificial Life, was a tantalising intellectual concept. In 2001, Steve Grand’s new book, ‘Creation: Life and How to Make It’ was a requirement on all our shelves.

Twenty years on, a pandemic allowed all of us to become familiar with the sinister meaning of R values, climate change has meant that we contextualise our summers with global weather modelling and cyber-attacks have made us aware of algorithmic manipulation of our data. Coder or consumer, we now accept that we consume vast data visualisations and dream of viral simulations. We are now all aware that our lived experience is, to some extent, informed by the abstraction of the big data that our small actions contribute to.

From micro-simulation of traffic to modelling of disease, we have developed a societal relationship with coded abstraction. This immersive projected artwork returns to the nostalgic playground of artificial life to explore again, the way in which we accept the representation of our actions, and the way that we attempt to anthropomorphise the visualisation of our data.

God's Eye View IV (Conflict), offered Cotterrell an opportunity to return to his coding experiments of twenty years before. With expert support from Ian Gouldstone and with a collaborative sound work from Shelly Knotts, God's Eye View IV explored the perverse simulation of a world where all behaviour was dictated by the US Field Manual for Infantry. God's Eye View IV was installed at SADACCA, Sheffield. It was curated and commissioned for No Bounds Festival by Amy Carter-Gordon.

Materials:

Custom, fibreglass sectional dome, convex mirror, custom software and Mac Pro.