I’ve had a fair amount of focused time this week to devote to this project, and it feels like it’s been time well spent.
So far, I have outlined twelve episodes from Mira’s life, starting with her introduction to the rules of Life as a young girl, and ending with her death at the age of eighty. I know this outline will continue to change as I develop the story. Still, I feel for the first time that I have a path — hazy and uncertain and likely dotted with holes, but a path nonetheless — towards both exploring philosophical questions, and telling a good story.
I’ve decided every scene should feature at least one pattern or phenomenon from Life. The pattern might be something Mira is simulating, or something she’s trying to construct, or simply something she remembers having seen in the past. I want the meaning of each scene to arise from the interaction between this pattern and whatever events are unfolding in Mira’s interpersonal world. If this works, the story will be a two-stranded construction, with the two strands — life and Life — twisted together and cross-linked like a length of DNA.
This decision naturally begs a question: if every scene has at least one Life pattern, how should that pattern be represented? So far, I’ve been trying to describe the patterns in words, as I did when I showed Marnie and her mother puzzling out the rules of Life in the first edition of this newsletter.
But I don’t think that’s going to work. Life is visual, and this story needs to be visual too. And not just visual — it needs to move. Reader, only the best for you. I desire you to see the patterns in their full ever-changing glory.
This means the story will have to be digitally native. Which leads me inevitably to the decision that…it should be a custom website! 🤦♂️
I’m thinking of a sort of web-native picture-book-slash-poem. On desktop, each page will be split in two (tastefully, tho — no book-fetish skeuomorphism, thank you!). One side (the left, probably) will show a live-generated, user-controllable animation of a Life pattern. The right will have a short piece of text. On mobile, I’ll either have to alternate between pattern and text (though I’m not sure with this format how I’d handle pages where the pattern is intentionally omitted), or display each “spread” in a single scrolling page, with a swipe to move from one page to the next.
Obviously the temptation for me now is to put the story aside and start building the website. I’m already thinking about how to structure the HTML and CSS and which JavaScript Life simulation library to use and—
I’ll stop myself right there. Building the website is the easy part, but I’m here to write a story. I’m going to try to hold myself to having a full first draft of the story before I start building the website.
I’ll still need to build a website for it eventually, though. So expect an episode of this newsletter in a few weeks’ time to take a detour into the world of static site development to chronicle the construction of the custom website. Until then, I’ll need to work double-time to finish the story AND have time to build the website before my ten weeks are up!
Now, it’s time for the inaugural 🏁 Pattern of the Week! 🏁
Max is the name for whatever the smallest-known spacefiller in Life happens to be.
I also love halfmax, the little cousin of max. Both max and halfmax are sort of creepy and insectile (look at those crunching mandibles on the sides of max!). They also remind me of the pyramids, which seems appropriate. Both the pyramids and max/halfmax are monolithic and have an overpowering presence.
"Djîzeh (Nécropole de Memphis), Pyramide de Chéops (Grande Pyramide)" (1851–52) by Félix Teynard, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Most of the spacefillers I see listed on the LifeWiki fill space with zebra stripes. I wonder: what agars other than zebra stripes have known spacefillers? (Also: does every agar have a spacefiller? Or are there agars for which it is impossible to construct a spacefiller?)
Mira may at some point become interested in spacefillers because of the challenge they pose to superstability/resilience. In other words: how might one construct a stationary pattern which is able to maintain itself against the encroaching tsunami of a max or halfmax? (don't worry, I have no idea either!)
That’s it for this week’s Pattern of the Week!
Lastly in this update: I’d love to know how you’re enjoying this newsletter! I’ve put together a quick survey with three multiple choice questions. At the end, there’s a free text field for you to suggest ways I might improve the newsletter. Please take a minute to fill it out — it will help me make the next edition of this newsletter even better!
Thanks for sticking with me,
Justin