Martin Gardner Publishes John Conway’s Game of Life in Scientific American

Originally played by hand with counters and published by Martin Gardner, Conway’s Life is the best-known two-dimensional cellular automaton. It served as a foundational concept and source of inspiration for many generative artists. Life is played on an infinite two-dimensional grid with a certain amount of occupied cells. Each generation determines whether each cell is alive or dead depending on the state of the cells that surround it. Each cell changes status each generation. Conway’s Life would have a profound affect on the field of computation and computer generated art, specifically through its influence on the use of cellular automata in complexity science. This enabled simulation modeling of an diverse range of phenomenon including insects, traffic, weather and astronomic bodies. Overall, Life has had a profound impact on generative art by inspiring artists to explore emergent behavior, pattern generation, and algorithmic systems.