Faculty of Arts & Science

Digital Futures

Kahani Ploessl

de-generate

Interfaces, as they have been traditionally established, firmly place human intention and raw computation at opposite ends of the screen. While functionally efficient, this separation between collaborators limits the infinite potential of digital expression. Interfaces that push backend capabilities to the forefront will empower users to shape their own digital inhabitance with flexibility, sovereignty, and longevity. de-generate postulates what such interfaces may entail through an experimental hybrid of generative art (the approach) - and video games - the medium. Featuring computationally unbounded characters, de-generate makes full use of its algorithmic makeup with generative meshes, movements, and game functions. Attributed by a sense of emergence, generative characters have been coded as such - to exist - not to operate. The fundamental structure may be harnessed and altered alongside player input, leading to emergent gameplay that cannot be predicted.Video games as the medium, provides the perfect environment for exploring new digital emergence due to their controlled system, interdisciplinary components, and real-time participation. With all factors accounted for, de-generate’s character focused format cleverly disguises what is otherwise, user testing of the generative dynamics. While video games commonly rely on predefined game beats, de-generate explores how generative discovery may replace simulated gaming dynamics with actual computation. What meta game emerges from the chaos, is entirely unknown, and is itself a generative process. As such, all development of a meta game has been relinquished to participators of the game. How players adopt strategies and tactics outside the core gameplay mechanics, especially when involving exploitation of what may be ‘wrong’ with de-generate, is essential in realizing the project’s core themes of autonomous digital inhabitance.Departing from established interfaces, de-generate offers a new way of exploring digital reality, and presents an exciting example of how digital interfaces may maximize human extension into computation.To learn more please visit the project website or read the corresponding Thesis Document below.