The art of numbers

摘要

Tiny pixelated organisms live, move, multiply and die in little ponds of light on the floor. John Conway's 1970 Game of Life remains one of the more potent examples of how a simple algorithm can produce complex and sometimes beautiful effects. It's a fitting opening for a show called Digital Revolution. But what sort of revolution is this? An introductory collection of vintage home computers, arcade games, electro-pop jukeboxes and show-reels of special effects seems, at first glance, to be an exercise in retromania. Look harder, though, and you can make out hints of things to come. Early experiments in multimedia, hypertext, personas and avatars, connectivity, crowdsourcing and autonomy - often derided at the time as opaque and pointless -now seem prescient.