Life Game Orchestra is an interactive music composition system using two-dimensional cellular automata known as Conway's Game of Life. With eyes, ears, and bodies, you can enjoy the music and movie generated dynamically from the physical motion of performers.
We developed a system that generates music by translating cellular patterns of Conway's Game of Life into musical elements. A performer can compose music by controlling varying cell patterns and sounds with visual and auditory fun. The elements of tone are assigned to two-dimensional cell patterns in the matrix of the Game of Life. Our system searches defined cell patterns in the varying matrix dynamically. If the patterns are matched, corresponding tones are generated. A performer can draw cells in the matrix by moving in front of a camera or by mouse operation and interactively influencing the generation of music. The data of coordinates of the matched patterns are used for the tone elements such as root, octave, tonality, etc. The progress of the Game of Life is controlled with a clock defined by the performer to configure the groove of the music. By running multiple matrices with different pattern mapping, clock timing, and instruments, we can perform an ensemble. Our system is a fusion of performer design and the emergence of cellular automata as a complex system.
Keywords: Conway's Game of Life, Cellular automata, Cell pattern, scale, Interactive composition, performance.
[PDF]