Road to Success (2017)

Photo credit: Jessica Field

The work “Road to Success” is an artificial life project that is about what motivates the agents to find success and to be preoccupied by other things. This version of the work uses the Robert McLaughlin gallery’s permanent collection metadata as the driving force for the agents in the program to find success. Each Agent is modeled from data about each painting in the collection. Each painting tells the agents how driven to success they are by how famous the artist is that they are modeled from. The type of paintings also determine how they choose to navigate the space they live in and where they wish to go on the map in the questions of being “realistic,” desiring emotional experiences, or focusing on nature.

The allegorical map of the project is like a board game that also influences the agents on where to go, what their objectives are and how they are emotionally affected by their experiences which determines what behaviour they take on when exploring their environment. The work is a complex interplay between technology, determination, and freedom of choice to address the larger implications that make our lives complicated. This work is an opportunity to observe the implications of these larger determinant forces in our lives, driving the agents in certain directions and that there is always space to change these trajectories in our individual diversity and autonomy.