Rob Churm: Parasite Rex Computer Chess and Pattern Language

A film screening of Andrew Bujalksi’s Computer Chess and Peter Burr’s Pattern Language, accompanying Rob Churm's exhibition Parasite Rex.

Set over the course of a weekend tournament for chess software programmers in the 1980s, Computer Chess introduces eccentric geniuses with the vision to teach a computer to defeat humans at chess and lays the groundwork for artificial intelligence as we will come to know it in the future. Pattern Language is a term coined by architect Christopher Alexander which describes the aliveness of certain human ambitions through an index of structural patterns. In this piece, the vocabulary of Alexander’s system is employed towards the construction of an endlessly mutating labyrinth. It premiered at 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center, New York as a 4-channel video installation and has since been adapted to film.