Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:00am

MA | Getting A Life

I've been researching "computational autopoiesis". This is a field of computing/mathematics that looks to simulate autopoietic systems using, typically, the tools and technologies developed in the field of artificial life.

Now, I was pretty sure that if there was one direction that my research wouldn't take me in then it was 'alife'. Not that I don't find it interesting in some respects, but aesthetically the idea of making work composed of blobs on a computer screen appearing to interact with each other doesn't appeal.

However, as is the nature of research, I'm finding my prejudices challenged over this topic. While, lot's of alife work *does* lead to blobs bouncing around computer screens, some of the underlying theory is actually rather good.

I'll introduce an 'alife' category in my del.icio.us links and see what else I can uncover that's of use.

Author: Sean Clark