ABSTRACT
Models informed by the study of code in context certainly exist within the field of design, especially in light of the advances in digital and parametric design modeling. Karl Chu references rule-based systems such as cellular automata, a discrete model invented by John Conway in Conway's Game of Life, and now championed by the scientist and inventor, Stephen Wolfram. This deterministic modeling system places code at the center of life and is studied in computation and theoretical biology. In a post-genomic world filled with genetically-altered "model" organisms that remain unchallenged by their controlled surroundings, together with sequencing of the human genome, this linear framework has come to overshadow more holistic, biological paradigms, including "epigenesis". This philosophy encompasses emergent behavior and network theory, and the notion basic to complexity theory more generally that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
