Science Narratives

Game of Life

Three epochs of Conway's Game of Life — from still lifes and oscillators through gliders and collisions to the chaotic ash of a digital universe.

In 1970, John Conway invented a game with no players. His Game of Life is a cellular automaton where each cell lives or dies based on its eight neighbours: overpopulation kills, isolation kills, but two or three neighbours sustain life, and a dead cell with exactly three neighbours births anew. From these four sentences, an entire cosmos of behaviour emerges. This print traces three epochs of a Life simulation. Early patterns show simple still lifes and oscillators—stable islands of order. Mid-game reveals gliders, spaceships, and the first collisions that produce unpredictable growth. Late patterns display the chaotic aftermath: ash fields of static debris, rakes emitting streams of gliders, and the eerie silence of a universe that has burned itself out.

A4 printapprox 8 x 10 in - giclee $35 A3 printapprox 13 x 19 in - giclee $65 Large printapprox 18 x 24 in - giclee $95 Hand-plotted originalpen-plotted - numbered edition of 25 - made to order $250

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