Ivan Belousov
Non-Zero-Sum Game
Interactive installation (programming, 3D-modelling, industrial metal working, sound design)
2025
The term “non-zero-sum game” comes from game theory and refers to a type of player interaction where the outcome of a game brings either a win or a loss to all of the players involved. This project explores a programmatic model of a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.
The installation consists of an interactive digital zone projected onto a screen and a metal controller with two potentiometers that can be used to interact with the work. At the core of the digital system is a cellular automaton, a kind of computational model developed by mathematicians in the mid-20th century to simulate a variety of dynamic self-regulating processes primarily in biology and chemistry, but also in other areas such as social sciences and economics. A cellular automaton is a grid of cells that can either be “dead” or “live”. They change states synchronously based on a set of fixed rules.
The screen shows an ever-changing cellular automaton grid consisting of round-shaped resource cells divided into two clusters – one white and one green. Square-shaped AI agent cells, controlled by a neural network, move among them. AI agents of one colour consume resources of the other colour and use this energy to move. The AI agents can also generate resources by interacting with resource cells of their colour and by following the logic of the cellular automaton. As a result, the model reflects a mutually beneficial interrelationship.