An Artificial Life Artwork by Rolf van Gelder, July 2014

About this artwork

It’s a web-art piece about life, death, sexuality, competition, desire, reproduction, aging, child birth and more. Every creature is just fading away and life goes on even after it dies…

All the ‘facts’ below are arbitrary… I just made them up for sake of the artwork!
After reading the text below you should be able to understand what’s happening in the artwork above. For questions and / or comments you always can send me an email.

Colors:
Every “gender + sexual orientation” combination has its own color.
The colors fade with age.

Color legend:

	Hetero Female
	Gay Female
	Bi-sexual Female
	Hetero Male
	Gay Male
	Bi-sexual Male
	Baby / Child (0-12 years old; at the age of 12 it decides what it’s sexual orientation is and changes color according to that)

Showing data (toggle on/off with the ‘d’ key on the keyboard):

#22: Current ID of the creature
GM: Gay Male
38: Current Age (in years)
56: Dying Age (in years)

Creatures age range:
0-99 years old

Life expectancy distribution:
6%: 0-39 years old
88%: 40-79 years old
6%: 80-99 years old

Gender distribution:
50-50%

Sexual orientation distribution:
93%: hetero
5%: gay
2%: bisexual

Matching rules:

• Creature must be older than 15 years
• Creature must be younger than 80 years
• Maximal age difference: 20 years
• Gender and sexual orientation:
  • Hetero females match with: hetero males and bisexual males
  • Gay females match with: gay females and bisexual females
  • Bisexual females match with: gay females, bisexual females, hetero males and bisexual males
  • Hetero males match with: hetero females and bisexual females
  • Gay males match with: gay males and bisexual males
  • Bisexual males match with: gay males, bisexual males, hetero females and bisexual females
• Creatures are always looking for the nearest suitable match

Offspring:
Matched couples of different genders can reproduce, based on a certain probability.
This simulation is based on natural child birth which means gay couples cannot have babies.
(Don’t get me wrong: I think gay couples are totally able to raise kids!!!)

Fertility ages:

• Males: 20-70 years old
• Females: 18-50 years old

Divorces:
10% of the couples ‘might’ get a divorce, based on a certain probability.
Every creature can get divorced only once (in the current setting)

Speed:
Younger creatures move faster than older ones…

Keys (first click on the animation to give it focus!):
‘d‘: show data (=some properties) of the creatures
‘g‘: create a new generation

Built with:
Processing.js