# State Slices

Canonical URL: https://baoyangchen.com/works/state-slices/
Interactive page: https://baoyangchen.com/#work/state-slices
Year: 2023
Category: AI Agent-based Works
Medium: LLM-driven robotic arms, optical assembly, screens

## Proposition
A state appears only when a screen, a prism, a robot, and a viewer briefly line up.

## Description
State Slices begins with two luminous white screens. They appear almost empty. The image is present, but the eye cannot read it alone.

A robotic arm carries a transparent hexagonal prism through the space. Some faces of the prism hold polarizing film; others remain open. When the right face enters the viewer's sightline, a slice of an artificial-life system briefly appears.

The work treats seeing as an event. A state arrives for a moment, then falls back into whiteness. To see one slice is to lose others.

## Viewer Entry
The viewer moves through an L-shaped space where two screens meet at a corner. One position may reveal an image through the prism. A few steps away, the same screen may return to white. The viewer does not choose the state. They enter or miss the optical condition through which it can be read.

## Apparatus
The installation uses two LCD screens with front polarizing films removed. A shared artificial-life simulation evolves state buffers such as persistence, branching, failure, depletion, repair, and transition. The robotic arm moves a prism with alternating analyzer faces and open apertures. Readability depends on screen signal, analyzer face, robot pose, and viewer sightline.

## Sections
### White Screens
The screens are not blank. They carry modulated light that remains unreadable without an external analyzer. The first encounter is with an image that exists but does not offer itself.

### Prism as Gate
The prism supplies the optical condition. Its analyzer faces make a state readable; its open apertures remove that condition and return the screen to white.

### Robotic Scheduling
The robot moves the prism through distance, rotation, dwell, and withdrawal. Its motion gives access duration, scale, and loss.

### Viewer Position
Sightline matters. One viewer may read a slice, another may see only a partial image, and another may see whiteness. The work does not produce one image for the room.

### Seeing One Branch
The simulation continues to evolve many possible states. The viewer encounters one temporary branch by entering a relation that leaves other branches unread.

## Images
1. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/02-88e8a227-09-.gif - Through one analyzer face, a temporary slice of the artificial-life simulation becomes readable.
2. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/03-b76f083b-5.jpg - An oblique angle breaks the image into fragments, making the readout incomplete.
3. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/04-4e723f5d-6-.jpg - When the sightline passes through an open face, the screen remains present but the state falls back into whiteness.
4. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/05-386f7c8b-4e5d90cb5b2d97183bcbfd1a9d9c626.png - Viewer position, robot pose, prism angle, and screen signal form the condition of appearance.
5. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/01-6acdf792-1.jpg - The modified LCDs appear as luminous white surfaces before a polarizing face enters the sightline.
6. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/06-75c049e1-8-.jpg
7. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/07-02bae440-7-.jpg
8. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/08-bf8e16a9-4.jpg
9. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/09-6db6de33-3.jpg
10. https://baoyangchen.com/original-site-media/state-slices/10-322f2345-c7d98cea9fafd636794202a81942b3e.png

## Videos
1. https://player.vimeo.com/video/1173134598?h=68492cd5f3&badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479
2. https://player.vimeo.com/video/1042921085?h=cf9c3b254f&badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479

## Source Pages
- https://baoyangchen.com/state-slices