Tim Blackwell’s Swarm Music (2001-2002):
Swarm Music

In a few different series of compositions, Tim Blackwell uses swarming and flocking algorithms to generate music. He explains that in an ensemble that is improvising is essentially performing a sort of flocking behavior, wherein the entire group as a whole is moving in some direction, led by the musicians responding to each other. Based on these principles, he synthesizes MIDI compositions in which the instruments swarm/flock to create music.

Overall, what attracted me to this piece was the idea of creating a composition in the same way jazz improvisers create music, with each voice in an ensemble responding to the others. I think this work is quite successful, although I wish these pieces were updated with modern synthesizers. It’s very clear from listening to these decade-old compositions that MIDI and other synthesized audio technologies have come a long, long way in the last ten years.

Jon McCormack’s Morphogenesis Series (2011):
Link to series

This series of digital prints synthesizes flora using genetic algorithms, with Australian flora as a starting point. He notes that the types of flora that were produced from this series had familiar characteristics, yet would probably be impossible in nature. He seems to use a nice renderer/shader to go from the models that are created, as shown in a detailed image on the site linked above, to the final version.

The idea of synthesizing biological creatures that are familiar yet impossible is an attractive idea, and I think McCormack executes it well. As someone who’s not familiar with Australian flora, I perhaps can’t appreciate all of the subtlety of what was produced by the genetic algorithm, as opposed to what actually is characteristic of Australia. Regardless, I think the images are very pretty, and I would appreciate seeing these printed out rather than on a computer monitor. (There are prints available). I think mediating this sort of art with a screen, even though it was created on a device whose interaction with us is mediated by such a screen, doesn’t do as much justice to the images as printing them out on high quality paper might.

Beastlines is a series of short animations taking biological mashups, in a cut-and-paste style, and animating them. In essence, it’s a commentary on new lifeforms and genetically mutated life. It takes the opposite approach from the two other projects I’ve looked outwards towards today. From the artist’s description, I think the most striking phrase used it “biology is no longer destiny.” It seems that this phrase is a major driver in this work, animating biological deviations.

On its own, I think the individual figures aren’t very striking. However, in animation, taking on bizarrely human and dance characteristics, I think this piece becomes more compelling. There are a few moments when the characters seem to be dancing, juxtaposing their distinctly mashed-up, non-human form with what I perceive as an inherently human movement.

I would like to create a program that constructs and deconstructs an autostereogram. I am very interested in the mechanism in which people can perceive them and think it would be interesting to explore how long you can see the object pop out once you know that it is there. The user will be able to interact with the speed and amount of “random” generation of the pixels to see how long they can see the object clearly. I would like this to help people who have trouble seeing the objects and also to be an interesting perspective for people who can see them and don’t quite understand how or why.
I have not yet decided what the object will be, I think that I will be able to pick an object once I have tested it some more, but I think I will choose something that is easily recognizable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram#Simulated_3D_perception