Looking Outwards 2: Generative Art

Ian Cheng’s Emissaries is “a trilogy of simulations about cognitive
evolution, past and future, and the ecological conditions that shape
it,” as per the artist’s website. Cheng created the live, CGI
simulations through a video game engine and observed the works from
2015 – 2017 as the game essentially “played itself.” The characters
and creatures within Emissaries play out their lives in open-
ended narratives generated and modeled through predictive technology
usually reserved for forecasting election results or climate change.

Emissaries is a fascinating case study on narrative consciousness,
evolution, and dealing with natural chaos in life. I had the good
fortune of listening to Ian speak about this work when he visited
Carnegie Mellon back in 2017, and I was struck by the sheer complexity
and time he invested into these generative worlds. In order to build
this game and have it play itself over two years, I think Cheng would
have had to feed the algorithm an inordinate amount of data on past
major events, disasters, and research on human psychology so that the
game could generate narratives and characters that accurately reflect
our world.

• Ian Cheng’s website
• MoMa Exhibition
• New Yorker Article