Katherine Buse, The University Of Chicago; Samuel Pizelo, University of California, Davis
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês
This panel considers the role of play in computational modeling as an experimental practice. From the beginning, computer models seemed to bridge between calculation and experiment–presenting an alternative version of nature that could be used not just for verification of theory but for new discoveries (Galison). Theorists developing weather prediction models and war game scenarios also tinkered with parameters for cellular automata (CA), abstract grids of evolving logical patterns following game-like rules. While it was hoped that CA could model emergent complexity, it was only after community experimenters mailed the results of their findings in John H. Conway’s “Game of Life” to a popular science magazine that this was experimentally proven. Thus, the community’s engagement with modeling was successful because of play—a mode of experimentation with systems and a suspension, alteration, or iteration of normalcy. Experimental play allows for a “reconfiguration” of traditional models of scientific knowledge production and enacts a broader conception of scientific community.
Scholars have considered playful influences on computational modeling in computer graphics (Gaboury), nanosciences (Milburn), disaster preparation (Thomas), video games (Jagoda), environmental science (Chang), military research (Lenoir/Caldwell), artificial life (Helmreich), and other topics. Addressing a broad conception of computational modeling, we ask: what is the relationship between its technologies and experimental results? How does play reconfigure conventional understandings of scientific process? How have playful modeling techniques traveled between intra- and extra-institutional contexts? Can an orientation toward play forge new connections between institutional sciences and broader communities, overlooked stakeholders, and silenced participants?
