Elevator Life
Artist
Brad Miller
MediumStainless steel and electronics
Dimensions36 3/4 x 36 7/8 x 6 1/8 in. (93.3 x 93.7 x 15.6 cm)
ClassificationsMixed Media
Credit LineSeattle City Light 1% for Art Portable Works Collection
I am interested in creating unique experiences that require an active viewer. Elevator Life is an interactive artwork intended for placement in public elevator lobbies. There is a large community of scientists and mathematicians who study simple artificial life programs like this. They are interested in the patterns that emerge from the apparent chaos of neighboring cells disrupting or aiding neighboring cells. The have identified specific patterns with specific periods (number of generations before a pattern repeats). They have defined patterns that resist disruption by encroaching patterns. Patterns called blinkers, frogs, and gliders appear out of the chaos particularly commonly.
“The elevator buttons in this artwork might represent nodes of our daily paths. Each day we have different paths that overlap at such nodes as elevators, street intersections, and grocery stores. We are individuals who thrive or fail in the proximity of others, often because of the proximity of others. This is what the artificial life simulation points at in the artwork. We live or die because of the very people we only exchange smiles with in elevators.
“The button lights can be turned on and off by pressing them. Every 4 seconds the famous, simple artificial life program is applied to all 100 buttons at once. The program considers an “on” button to be “alive” and an “off” button to be “dead.” Each button runs by the same rules:
1. A living button with only 0 or 1 living neighbors dies from isolation.
2. A living button with 4 or more living neighbors dies from overcrowding.
3. A dead button with exactly 3 living neighbors becomes alive.
4. All other buttons remain unchanged.
These rules are applied to all the buttons simultaneously. Each time the whole array is recalculated it is called a generation. As the program runs through multiple generations the array can be seen to move in strange, non-random ways.
“The elevator buttons in this artwork might represent nodes of our daily paths. Each day we have different paths that overlap at such nodes as elevators, street intersections, and grocery stores. We are individuals who thrive or fail in the proximity of others, often because of the proximity of others. This is what the artificial life simulation points at in the artwork. We live or die because of the very people we only exchange smiles with in elevators.
“The button lights can be turned on and off by pressing them. Every 4 seconds the famous, simple artificial life program is applied to all 100 buttons at once. The program considers an “on” button to be “alive” and an “off” button to be “dead.” Each button runs by the same rules:
1. A living button with only 0 or 1 living neighbors dies from isolation.
2. A living button with 4 or more living neighbors dies from overcrowding.
3. A dead button with exactly 3 living neighbors becomes alive.
4. All other buttons remain unchanged.
These rules are applied to all the buttons simultaneously. Each time the whole array is recalculated it is called a generation. As the program runs through multiple generations the array can be seen to move in strange, non-random ways.
