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22.04.03 LifeGrabber, the machine watching itself.
LifeGrabber is an electronic art work made by the tireless artist Luigi Pagliarini. It's composed of a PC, a microphone and a webcam mounted on a robotic arm, controlled by Cyberty, a software written by the artist himself. By analyzing the audio and video inputs, the program generates a population of 'agents', according to the artificial intelligence rules of the game 'Life'. The elements of this self-evolving system are square images, whose reproduction and movement is directly influenced by the external audio events. At the same time, these images are graphically interpolated with the webcam input. Every step of the algorithm is therefore influenced by external informations, and in every screenshot the viewer can observe the past, present and future of the agents' evolution. The social aspect of the agents is also very interesting, since they influence one another, in a constant 'debate' on dimensions and colors, but the result is nonetheless always harmonious. The computer's eye (webcam) and ear (microphone), if pointed at itself, give birth to a 'self-observing machine', one of the most fascinating mechanisms in artificial intelligence. In this case, it's possible to watch a machine 'watching itself', evolving its elaborations in a totally autonomous way.