Cubism never achieved its intended orbit. Don Gray and I brought this behemoth to Burning Man in 2003 and 2004. The original intention was to hang a 4’x4’ cube from a tetrahedron superstructure. A six-sided cube, however, proved to be way too big, cumbersome and heavy; we built two sides in 2003 and then only managed to complete a third side in 2004. Each panel consisted of 256 three-inch square cells (16×16 grid) running John Conway’s Game of Life program. Don Gray designed and built the hardware platform, and I wrote the code in Assembler. As the interactive control platform was not nearly robust enough, we ran the Game of Life in auto-mode. Cubism almost didn’t make the portfolio cut as it wasn’t a complete success; however, the hardware and software did work to spec. I learned more from this failed project than probably any other. It’s good to fail… once in a while.
Game of Life is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Conway in 1970. Play it now!
Photo credits: Waldemar Horwat & Geoff Silverton
