Ima Traveller
year: 1996
material: interactive software for Mac OSX
technique: projection
dimensions: variable, minimum 240 x 180 cm.
Ima Traveller is interactive computer software for exploring an infinite universe. It enables you to make a journey into a space that is being created in real
time. This space develops in the direction you are moving into, so there is no end to it. You travel forward in a smooth motion, you can drift in all directions,
but you can never go back to where you came from. You are zooming in on a surface of infinite size, never reaching any boundaries.
The expanding universe begins with one single pixel at the centre of the screen. From there the program generates new generations of pixels based on a cell-division
process. While breeding, each pixel divides into four new pixels. The new pixels are more or less autonomous cells that are able to define their own colour (hue,
brightness and saturation) by interaction with the surrounding pixels. Each pixel has its own way of dealing with its environment: some like to merge with others,
some are very individualistic, but most of them more or less adapt themselves. Repetition of this multiplication process refines the tissue, and unpredictable images,
with a more or less coherent structure, arise.
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