Theater and ALife Art: Modeling Open and Closed Systems

Area of Science:

• Artificial Life (ALife)
• Art History
• Theater Studies

Background:

• Live theater's connection to Artificial Life (ALife) art is under-explored, despite theater's inherent focus on the living and artificial.
• The containment-versus-continuity dilemma, central to theater, also resonates within ALife art.
• Investigating the boundary between observers and modeled systems is crucial in both theater and ALife research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To initiate a discussion on the links between ALife, ALife art, and live theater.
• To explore thematic threads common to these domains, including universe modeling and system openness.
• To examine implications for defining life, non-life, and liveness in emergent synthetic biology and metamaterials.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis of thematic parallels between ALife, ALife art, and theater.
• Exploration of shared concepts such as system modeling, observer-system boundaries, and definitions of life.
• Discussion of the containment-versus-continuity dilemma in artistic and scientific contexts.

Main Results:

• Identifies significant overlaps in how theater and ALife art model life and create artificial systems.
• Highlights the shared challenge of defining the autonomy versus continuity of artworks and modeled systems.
• Underscores the importance of the observer's role in defining liveness and artificiality across domains.

Conclusions:

• Theater offers a rich, yet overlooked, historical and theoretical framework for understanding ALife art.
• Further interdisciplinary research can illuminate novel perspectives on life, art, and artificiality.
• The study opens avenues for exploring emergent properties in synthetic biology and metamaterials through an artistic lens.