Leonardo

Visual languages play an important role in electronically mediated communication. In particular, iconography has developed as an important component of user interface design. Interactivity makes an icon an active agent in communication, rather than a passive communicator. The author's interactive work Iconica uses icons to represent the function and structure of an artificial-life model. In this work, iconic elements are the basic building blocks of a world literally made of language. This world has the capacity to evolve, change and mutate through human interaction and its own evolutionary process. Communication with the resident life forms occurs via the iconic language that defines the world, including its elements, forms, entities, spaces and behaviors.