Interactive Evolutionary System: a speculative storytelling
The goal of this project is to explore the interactive relation between artificial light, moths and humans, and how the entanglement system will develop in the future. It enables the audience to see the consequences of their behaviour immediately after taking action in a virtual space and encourage them to rethink the imbricate networks which constitute lives on earth.
I would create an evolutionary system on the website to simulate how the moths interact with their environment which is based on real streets. Light pollution data would be visualized and placed in corresponding locations. Audiences could enter into the system and change their behaviour to intensify or slow down the impact of light pollution on the moth’s population. Digital plants and moths are more likely to mutate when exposed to intense light, so to change their appearance and behaviour. There will be multiple outcomes according to different actions and some of them would be selected to show through VR or AR.
Data Visualization
Light data will be collected from the streets via lux sensor and visualized in p5.js. It enables the audience to feel close to the virtual spaces so as to empathy with things and events in them.
Simulation Evolution System
I would create a bunch of artificial moths via the genetic algorithm and set how different conditions would affect their health, habit and circadian rhythm, so the genes that are most adaptive to the environment will be preserved.