Iconic elements are the basic building blocks of a world literally made of language. These elements are the core of an artificial-life model that runs the world, and the behavior of the life-forms and objects within it. Described as the elemental forces of "reality," "identity," "information," "abstraction," the "subconscious," and the "metaphysical," they each relate to unique pictorial styles and soundscapes used to represent the world. The result is a fusion of plastic knowbots, surreal iconography, electronic abstraction, and real-world dirt. The work has the capacity to evolve, change, and mutate through human interaction and its own evolutionary process. Visitors to the world can create, construct, and manipulate objects, influence the evolution of societies, and discover new language elements. Communication with the resident life-forms occurs via the iconic language on which the world is based. The multiplicity of Iconica is experienced through this interaction - simultaneously a cyberspace, a mindspace, an abstract world, and a stylized reality.

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		ACM SIGGRAPH Online! http://www.siggraph.org email: Bonnie Mitchell mitchell@siggraph.org		Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics. Last Updated: 1999