OOH be gah!
(2022)
Computer as the Artist
OOH BE GAH! is an exploration of Human and Computer can collaborate to make a cohesive work of art. In modifying the Sims 4 with the help of AI-generated media software, I founded my own semi-autonomous Artists’ Collective within the game.
Introduction
The Sims, at its core, is a poignant interrogation of the everpresent philosophical debate between fate and free will. The gameplay, at its core, reverses the roles of God and Man and shows what happens when Humans are given the ability to bend the fate of their sovereign creations and the power struggle that arises when seemingly omnipotent power tries to influence autonomous beings.
In this work, I wanted to test what would happen if God left after creation. If these beings were left to their own devices, would they stay on the path set for them or would they stray from it completely?
Meet THE MEJINA COLLECTIVE
The Mejina Household is an artist collective founded by Lizzy Tolentino. Members include siblings Shelly, Lindsay, and Wyatt Mejina. They all live together on the Hillside Highlands Lot of Newcrest, SimNation within FileSlot_000000006.save on Lizzy’s desktop computer.
A LIVING PERFORMANCE
For this, the Sims act as autonomous performance artists. They live on screen, create art as they choose, and their work is printed in real-time and is to be displayed in a physical gallery in the Human world.
sample performance from a Sim.
PROCESS
The Art of Playing God
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.” — Emanuel Kant
When creating the Sims for this experiment, I wanted to make them as human as possible while also keeping the amount of human influence over their existence to a minimum and for the decisions of the Sim artists to be as sovereign as possible.
Creating the Autonomous Sim
In creating the Sims and their world, I wanted to keep as many decisions to be made by the computer as possible. Aside from delivering the user inputs necessary for the game to actually run (eg. hitting the randomize button during Sim creation, inserting necessary objects into the starter home so the Sim’s Create skills were activated), I did my best to leave the Sims to their own devices.
Using the Randomize and Genetics features, the appearance and personality details were all determined by the computer. The only choice I made for each Sim was adding a single creative interest to each of their personality profiles (Shelly likes painting, Lindsay likes music, and Wyatt likes writing poetry).
Fabricating Free Will
After creation, in-game settings were modified, ensuring that I — the user — could not give the Sims commands during play. Now, in addition to creating art, the Sims were in charge of making sure they ate sufficient meals, stayed clean, and didn’t pee their pants.
Making The Illusion of Thought
In addition to diminishing human influence over the Sim’s decision-making in-game, I also wanted to make sure the actual works or art each Sim produced was not human-generated.
With the help of open-source AI technologies, I was able to replace the existing painting textures, audio files, and writings attached to the Sim’s creative actions with new fully computer-generated outputs. This way, the computer would be the mastermind behind each and every work produced by the Sims.