Basement Office

DIY ambience

Otomata may well be the most beautiful thing I’ve interacted with in a while. Using some pretty simple cellular automata rules, a la The Game of Life (no, not that one), one can create simple musical sequences that, depending on the placement and direction of the individual units, can slowly evolve and thereby produce an ever-changing melody.

This is programming or writing music at its best. No words to distract, structured enough to keep focus, yet random enough to keep from going mad. It’s like having endless variations of the theme from “American Beauty” at your fingertips. Brilliant.