Will Wright and Brian Eno – “Playing with Time”
June 26th, 02006 by Simone Davalos
Generative play
In a dazzling duet Will Wright and Brian Eno gave an intense clinic on the joys and techniques of “generative” creation.
Back in the 1970s both speakers got hooked by cellular automata such as Conway’s “Game of Life,” where just a few simple rules could unleash profoundly unpredictable and infinitely varied dynamic patterns. Cellular automata were the secret ingredient of Wright’s genre-busting computer game “SimCity” in 1989. Eno was additionally inspired by Steve Reich’s “It’s Gonna Rain,” in which two identical 1.8 second tape loops beat against each other out of phase for a riveting 20 minutes. That idea led to Eno’s “Music for Airports” (1978), and the genre he named “ambient music” was born.
Wright observed that science is all about compressing reality to minimal rule sets, but generative creation goes the opposite direction…
Read the rest of Stewart Brand’s Summary
This entry was posted on Monday, June 26th, 2006 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Seminars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Posted on February 2nd, 2008 at 1:13 am
Wow, what a great seminar.
I was wondering what was the 2 software programs that Will Wright was using. One was a used for Cellular automata. the other one was about computer painting/drawing/coloring.
Do you know what they were called?
Posted on March 22nd, 2008 at 10:24 am
John:
I have been looking for that program also. I finally found it at:
http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/mcell/download.html
It’s called MCELL. Enjoy,
Wayne
Posted on April 16th, 2008 at 11:49 am
What is the name of the software will wright used that was painting pictures and colors of people? Is it the same MCell or is there another one? I thought the person’s name was Curtswell or Cristwell or something.. anyone know?
Posted on June 3rd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
for the name of that software you should ask it to my friend Davide Bocelli ( from the long now foundation )
you can find his mail in this site or fid him on facebook and make a friend request.. i also asked him and i think he had an answer..
cheers
Alex Spagnoli
Posted on July 4th, 2008 at 6:48 am
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Posted on July 15th, 2008 at 1:36 am
[...] Wright from his now legendary Long Now talk with Eno, as quoted by Jim Rossignol in his excellent book “This Gaming Life” (my emphasis [...]
Posted on August 31st, 2008 at 11:48 am
Speaking of slowing things down after they’re composed, and slow music in general (apt for The Long Now; thanks to Metafilter):
http://oddstrument.com/2008/08/28/beethovens-9th-symphony-x-2215-very-very-slow-classical-music/
Posted on October 24th, 2008 at 6:52 am
[...] a session with game designer Will Wright done by the Long Now (view the summary or download the [...]
Posted on February 27th, 2009 at 10:22 am
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