CALENDAR

ACULT:
Artificial Culture
Exploring Human Complex Worlds

Anthropology 137 - Lecture 2
Theory and Methods - 4 Units
Winter 2005

Lecture/Lab: Tuesdays/Thursdays 10:00 - 12:00
Office/Tutorial: TBA

And the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers,
and we all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words!
While across the sky sheet the impossible birds,
In a steady, illiterate movement homewards.

Joanna Newsome,
"This Side of the Blue"
(2004 Drag City).

January 6 - INTRODUCTION

3 Days of the Condor (Paramount 1975).
Evolutionary Computing Conferences
ARPANET Origins of the Internet
DARPA Failed States & World Hunger

Representations: Cognitions, Discourse, Models, Mathematics and Computation
Karl Sims and his Evolved Virtual Creatures

This Course
Index - Previous Courses
Simulations - Cellular Automata
An Introduction to Borland's C++ Builder
Handouts: C++ Language, Conway's "Game of Life."

January 11 - A MULTIAGENT PROGRAM

DARPA and Paramount build the "Holodeck." The ICT (Institute for Creative Technology) 60 Minutes and the Mission Rehearsal Exercise (MRE)..

Reviewing the code for Conway's "Game of Life."

Handouts: Time 1950 and Minsky on computation. C++ math, functions, color, files.

January 13

Some other Cellular Automata:
Mirek Wojtowicz's Cellebration
Ed Fredkin's Digital Philosophy
Fusebox Temple of Alife
Hugo's Brain Builder Project

We begin building Conway's "Game of Life" using Borland's C++ Rapid Application Development system.

January 18

We finish building Conway's "Game of Life" using Borland's C++ Rapid Application Development system. We make some changes in appearance and add some functional enhancements.

Due Today:
Discursive Challenge 1: TIME and Minsky

January 20 - Rover finds a meteorite on Mars

Due Today:
Programming Challenge 1: Conway's "GOL"

Introductions from everyone, to include philosophical issues (re: DC1) and ideas and demos of Conway's Game of Life. Sounds? Images? MouseDown, Move and Up events?

January 25

Dave: Reconfigurable Robots at Marina del Rey.

Shelling's Segregation Model and some new Borland Components...

January 27

Artifacts: Electromechanical Arrays.
Visualization and Sonification.
ColorRamp(), Beep() and PlaySound()...

Video: Robofest, Osaka.

Reconfigurable Robots - see Index.
Update on Reconfigurable Robots at Marina del Rey.

February 1

Self-Reconfigurable Robots at ISI: NASA-DARPA
Wei-Min Shen's CONRO project with movies.

Due Today:
Programming Challenge 2: Shelling's Segregation

Participants' demonstrations of projects

February 3

Some programming hints: scope, onPaint, errors.
Additive and subtractive primary colors demo.

Diffusion Limited Aggregation and/or
Traffic simulations.

Video: VPRO Amsterdam: Rodney Brooks on robots, agency and intelligence.

February 8

Some Tweaks on Diffusion Limited Aggregation

Due Today:
Discursive Challenge 2: Society of Mind

February 10

Demos of tweaks on Growth simulation.
Introduction to Iterated Prisoners Dilemma.
Video: VPRO Amsterdam, continued: Dalton Lab, Chris Langton, John Holland...

Due Today:
Programming Challenge 3: DLA Growth

February 15

An IPD enhancement to calculate the payoff to the community. Give it a try!

Darwinian/Wallacian Evolution through natural selection: Variation, Fitness and Reproduction.

Dawkins' "Biomorphs" alife.fusebox.com
Rennard's "Biomorphs" www.rennard.org
John Mount's Genetic Art IV not working
Rob Saunders Genetic Art not quite as good

Fitness landscapes, hill-climbing, local maxima.
Fitness Landscapes and Evolvability.
Evolutionary Concert Tour (ECT)

Video: Karl Sims "Galapagos"
Video: VPRO Amsterdam, continued: Chris Langton, Stuart Kauffman.

February 17

Participants' IDP comments and demos...

An Intro: Plaintext, Keytext and Cryptotext...
ASCII Code. Unbreakable codes. Hiding coded messages in images on the Internet. File formats.

PowerPoint: Carrying Capacity & Cultural Demography
Video: VPRO Amsterdam, continued...

Due Today:
Discursive Challenge 3: Evolutionary Computation.
Programming Challenge 4: Experiment with IPD.

February 18

Gerald Edelman
1:00 - 3:00
Anderson C-301
Marschak Colloquium.

February 22

Cryptology and computation.
Artifacts & Videos...

Due Today:
Programming Challenge 5: Evolutionary Concert Tour

February 24

Hiding text in images...
Class Project Proposal Presentations

Tufte on Visualization...

Discursive Challenge 4: Class Project Proposal

February 25

Visualizing Science
2:00 - 4:30 USC

March 1

Jacquard...
MIDI

Classwork on Projects

March 3

ISI seminars on Artificial Intelligence

In Class Programming Challenge 6:
Real World Interfacing - Stepper Motors
"Build a Theremin" (MIDI and sensors).

Classwork on Projects

March 8

Classwork on Projects

March 10

Coffee & Cookies
Participant Class Project Presentations
(First half REDS of those on our Participants page.)

March 15

Coffee & Cookies
Participant Class Project Presentations
(Second half GREENS of those on our Participants page.)