Give Birth 01
"A video game
— Ian Cheng, MoMA PS1, 2017
that plays itself"
Since 2012, Ian Cheng has been developing a series of computer simulations built in Unity. The principle seems simple: the artist creates an environment, defines a set of rules, integrates AI-driven agents, then launches the simulation. What happens next no longer truly belongs to him.
Three Emissaries
The Emissaries trilogy (2012–17) is the first major cycle of this research. Each simulation introduces a narrative agent — the Emissary — whose motivation to enact a story is in permanent conflict with the open chaos of the environment. The artist has programmed everything, defined everything — but he cannot control what will happen. The work is still held, but it has already begun to live.
In the Emissaries, the artist is still very present. He has defined everything — the environment, the rules, the agents, the narrative. But once the simulation is launched, he can no longer intervene. The work plays itself, evolves on its own, surprises its creator. This is the first degree of the answer: yes, the artist is still the author — but of a system that is already slipping away.