Implications - A Visual Journey Into Infinity

An artwork where you'll never be able to observe it's entirety...

I recently discovered a generative art project by ixnayokay - Implications. There’s so much variety in the collection and every one of them is a joy to watch. After spending hours watching different outputs, I’ve decided to write a few words about this project. Implications leverages cellular automata to create a never ending, never repeating visual journey. It’s a piece of artwork where you’ll never be able to see it all.

The animation starts from an initial state and explodes into motion.

The Visual

The animation starts with a predefined visual, which quickly expands to all corners of the canvas. It feels like the explosive birth of the artwork. Then, the visual elements constantly move, collide, and merge to form new colours and shapes, taking the viewer on a visual journey. There’s a feeling of anticipation, and I find myself waiting to see how the artwork will change next. The animation itself has a dreamlike quality to it. However, if you refresh the page, the sequence resets, and you have to start over.

Additionally, in the spirit of computer art, the artwork provides control and interactability by allowing viewers to tweak how the artwork will animate, through properties such as frame rate and detail level (zoom).

The frame rate is turned up in this one. Notice the animation is noticeably faster.

There are plenty of generative art projects out there that claim to have “infinite non-repeating” animations. Though many of these claims are technically correct, the art itself often feels visually repetitive to me. Just like how water ripples are technically infinitely non-repeating, they’re visually repetitive. In contrast, Implications truly feels visually non-repeating. The interaction rules between visual elements create infinite variety, pulling the viewer to continue watching the art’s future unfold. Due to the slow revealing nature of the artwork, it takes some time to appreciate.

This one starts with a dot and then explodes into motion.

The Algorithm

The artist mentions they’re experimenting in “the medium of cellular automata”. At a high level, cellular automata are where sets of rules define how cells in a grid evolve and interact over time. “Game of Life” is an example of this. For example, Implications could have a rule: if a pixel’s neighbouring 8 pixels are of different colour, move this pixel’s colour right one cell.

It’s essential to understand the core implications (heh, pun intended) of the algorithm to understand its impact on the art. We can see the result of the previous iteration is passed into the next iteration, making the visual compounding over time. It means you can’t compute the visuals of a specific timestamp without computing all the previous timestamps. It also means there is no terminal state, as you can always compute another iteration. Lastly, in the case of Implications, the code powering the visuals is algorithm only with no memory or shared state, meaning you can’t resume from a previous timestamp.

I love how quickly this one transitions into an entirely different patterns.

The Art

The brilliance of Implications comes from its execution in elegantly representing this algorithm. Compared to the artist’s previous works, the artist added an impressive amount of visual variety in animation, colour, and shapes to Implications. Sometimes new colours and shapes form slowly; other times, the transition is explosive. It’s very difficult to discern a point of repetition, making it visually consistent with the conceptual ideas of cellular automata. Combined with the fluidity of the animations (due to the compounding nature of the algorithm), the artwork feels ever-evolving. However, it’s impossible to observe the entirety of the art as it’s impossible to compute the infinite timestep of the algorithm without infinite time spent.

Some of the others transition at a more moderate pace.

Implications is another one of those projects that play into the characteristics of computing. It can’t be made with any other medium of art - code must be executed in order to view the piece correctly. There’s no other way to represent or experience it. The code is the art.

The visuals convey a sense of vastness to me. I catch myself staring to find a point where it ends, only to make me ponder my existence in the face of an algorithm that will outlive me. It’s a visual journey into infinity, and I find that strangely unsettling.