[arte e ciência]
[art and science]
Cordoaria [Lisboa]
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24 de Setembro a 24 de Novembro
September 24 to November 24
'09
Artist's Homepage
Pherographs
Recently, artificial life, evolutionary computation and, in general, complex system, are providing a new conceptual framework in which art and science are cooperating and surpassing the gap identified by J.P. Snow in his famous lecture The Two Cultures (1959). And, like photography helped Eadweard J. Muybridge (1830-1904) in his quest for understanding animals movements, complexity and the extraordinary technological burst of the last decades are guiding us on a journey through worlds, both natural and artificial, that were kept hidden until very recently. Pherographia which means drawing with pheromone is a tool born of this new science, a fascinating model designed to evolve on black-and-white images (to which I also contributed, scientifically, in its late stage of development) that started as a simulation of a real colony behaviour and its use of pheromone as a mean of communication one of those mysteries that entomology, complexity and technology helped us to understand. The term was inspired by photography, drawing with light. There are several similarities between Photographia and Pherographia, and that is why the system was also described as a camera obscura for ants. These characteristics - being a kind of bio-inspired version of photography and belonging to the family of complex systems that are being uinvestigated in order to better understand how nature works - inspired The Horse and the Ants, a set of snapshots of the ants positions when the environment changes, that is, when we swap a frame of Muybridge experiments, towards which the colony had already converged, by a later frame of that same experiment. The result is a gradual (self-)reorganization of the swarm, which, by means of pheromone deposition and sensing, and with the crucial role of evaporation, is able to readapt itself to the new environment. Images that were once used to study a horse in motion are now the support of an experiment/artwork that investigates how artificial ants self-organize in a changing environment. But, above all, The Horse and the Ants is my tribute to Eadweard Muybridge and to his invaluable contribution to both art and science.
Recently, artificial life, evolutionary computation and, in general, complex system, are providing a new conceptual framework in which art and science are cooperating and surpassing the gap identified by J.P. Snow in his famous lecture The Two Cultures (1959). And, like photography helped Eadweard J. Muybridge (1830-1904) in his quest for understanding animals movements, complexity and the extraordinary technological burst of the last decades are guiding us on a journey through worlds, both natural and artificial, that were kept hidden until very recently. Pherographia which means drawing with pheromone is a tool born of this new science, a fascinating model designed to evolve on black-and-white images (to which I also contributed, scientifically, in its late stage of development) that started as a simulation of a real colony behaviour and its use of pheromone as a mean of communication one of those mysteries that entomology, complexity and technology helped us to understand. The term was inspired by photography, drawing with light. There are several similarities between Photographia and Pherographia, and that is why the system was also described as a camera obscura for ants.
These characteristics - being a kind of bio-inspired version of photography and belonging to the family of complex systems that are being uinvestigated in order to better understand how nature works - inspired The Horse and the Ants, a set of snapshots of the ants positions when the environment changes, that is, when we swap a frame of Muybridge experiments, towards which the colony had already converged, by a later frame of that same experiment. The result is a gradual (self-)reorganization of the swarm, which, by means of pheromone deposition and sensing, and with the crucial role of evaporation, is able to readapt itself to the new environment. Images that were once used to study a horse in motion are now the support of an experiment/artwork that investigates how artificial ants self-organize in a changing environment. But, above all, The Horse and the Ants is my tribute to Eadweard Muybridge and to his invaluable contribution to both art and science.
Pherographias
