Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Digital Media
First Advisor
Mariela Yeregui
Second Advisor
Daniel Lefcourt
Third Advisor
Adela Goldbard
Abstract
This thesis explores a strange question: what happens if meaning is no longer written by an author, but emerges from the behavior of a system itself?
Beginning with observations of the Providence River and inspired by Conway’s Game of Life, information theory, and artificial life research, the project investigates simulation as a space where language, memory, and collective meaning can evolve without central control. Rather than treating video games as vehicles for storytelling, this research approaches them as dynamic systems capable of generating unpredictable forms of organization and perception.
The thesis proposes a closed spherical computational world populated by simple agents with limited memory and perception. These agents wander through space, encounter objects, invent names, and communicate through unstable channels filled with noise and distortion. Over time, words mutate, meanings drift, and unexpected linguistic structures emerge. Through repeated interaction, the system begins to produce temporary forms of consensus, misunderstanding, and semantic convergence.
A key example is the spontaneous emergence of the term “661,” a word that gradually detached itself from any single object and spread across the system through repetition and error. What appears at first to be malfunction instead reveals a deeper condition of language itself: meaning is not fixed by truth or origin, but produced collectively through circulation, instability, and shared use.
Ultimately, this thesis argues that generative systems may be capable of producing not only behavior, but the appearance of culture, language, and meaning. In this framework, noise is not a failure of communication, but the force that allows language to evolve. Meaning no longer belongs entirely to the speaker, the author, or the narrative. It belongs, instead, to the system.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Yichuan, "A Thesis by an Art Student Trying to Find Meaning in Simulation Games" (2026). Masters Theses. 1554.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1554
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