Event 3: Sam Wolk: Sound and Visual Artist

Each line is DNA of a single organism

Nutrient number 1 field

Same Wolk is an upcoming sound and visual artist whose passions include nonfiction film making and animation. He is a prime example of someone who take many aspect and combines them all to make his artwork. Modern technologies and ecology studies have lead to the work that he presented during his lecture which is his "Artificial Life Project". The basis was thousands and thousands lines of code, the guy knows how to use computers, this code lead too pieces of artificial DNA. The DNA strands that he created were screen long bars that had segments of differently shaded bars. Each bar corresponded to a certain trait (ex: quick growth, large smell radius, etc). Each full strand of DNA and traits manifested themselves as organisms on a different screen, each organism took the form of a different shape and that had a circle around it. The same technique was used for plant species and animal species (different traits corresponded to different segments). Even if these species had desired traits their survival depended on their location, for this he created fields of nutrients- with 3 different nutrients. The organisms that survive were able to pass on their genes, these organisms also provide food for the animal organisms. With this technology and his approach (strategy) he was able to create an entire artificial ecosystem that runs on its own. Sam was able to create this because of all the advances in technology, genetics, ecology and psychology. Towards the end the lecture he was able to show us a slide that had the brain and neurological network of one of his organisms: How the options it has and emotions it feels lead to a decision. He was able to pose a question that if this is possible for us, it may also be possible that our entire universe is the product of an extra dimensional being. That being a very large stretch is also something that is interesting to think about.

Awkward pic: feat. hover hand