Methuselah's Muse is an experiment in generative music using cellular automata. A 4-foot monolithic pillar is crowned by a grid of backlit buttons. The grid is running an interactive Game of Life simulation with birth, death, and input events triggering various audio samples. A single cell dies from isolation, so for slow input the grid appears as a simple 2D keyboard. But faster input or polyphony cause neighboring cells to interact and evolve, leading to emergent phenomena like gliders, oscillators, and methuselahs - each with their own unique musical signature. The resulting chorus is surprising yet tractable, an abstract soundtrack to the ongoing emergence.
Tech stack:
- Raspberry Pi Model B
- Monome 40h kit
- Pure Data synth patch
- GoL code in C