PATTERN LANGUAGE (midnight moment)
By Peter Burr
PATTERN LANGUAGE (midnight moment) by Peter Burr
"Pattern Language, built in a video game engine, is a rhythmic, strobing composition in richly patterned black and white. Employing cellular automata and crowd-simulation algorithms, this work envisions human life within a labyrinthine “Dirtscraper” – an inverted, underground skyscraper. Indistinct, nongendered figures in shades of grey walk through endless generative levels of lights and right angles, while others fill the screen with dots that bloom or wilt according to the classic “Game of Life” model developed by mathematician John Conway in 1970. Part of a larger project of the same name that has appeared from Kiev to Berkeley to Amsterdam, this work overtook Times Square in New York City every night in May 2018 as a part of Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment program. Viewers were immersed in the endless labyrinth which mirrors both the pointillist quality of Times Square’s LED billboards and the patterns we ourselves trace through the megastructure environment of New York City."