Filterscape: Energy Recycling in a Creative Ecosystem

Abstract

Abstract. This paper extends previous work in evolutionary ecosystemic approaches to generative art. Filterscape, adopts the implicit fitness specification that is fundamental to this approach and explores the use of resource recycling as a means of generating coherent sonic diversity in a generative sound work. Filterscape agents consume and deposit energy that is manifest in the simulation as sound. Resource recycling is shown to support cooperative as well as competitive survival strategies. In the context of our simulation, these strategies are recognised by their characteristic audible signatures. The model provides a novel means to generate sonic diversity through de-centralised agent interactions.

On Computational Ecosystems in Media Arts

“…This interest in the generative features of these systems has some tradition in music [90] and audiovisual artistic works [158]. By means of analyzing this artistic practice, I want to understand how this methodology can be widened to other areas (primarily, but not exclusively artistic).…”

“…Some authors, however, explore the inherent dynamics of these systems to generate audio (or audio-visual) pieces [52,90]. This thesis draws on this latter and more utilitarian approach, and explores the instrumentalization of the CE for other purposes rather than the direct visualization of the (virtual) ecologies.…”

“…It is up to the artists to play with this space of freedom creatively. A few instances exist where artists use the ecosystem dynamics to sonify their works [90,79,248]. I will expand on their work and use this methodology to animate communities of humanoid characters in dancing (Chapt.…”

On Writing and Reading Artistic Computational Ecosystems

“…Wakefield and Ji, for instance, produce sounds from the transcription of the Gtypes [28]. In other cases, the dynamics itself has been deemed interesting enough to be visualized or sonified; for example, the sonifications produced by Eldridge and Dorin result from the actions and status of the agents in the virtual space [11]. This is a healthy avenue of artistic practice (e.g., [22,26,15,28,24]).…”

Ecosystemic methods for creative domains: Niche construction and boundary formation

“…The algorithm was adapted to a musical domain by Blackwell and Young, who draw an analogy between the self-organising behaviour of a swarm or flock and an improvising ensemble [15]. In other examples, a more abstract use is made of the principle of self-organising in multi-agent systems, such as the distributed drawing systems studied by Driessens and Verstappen [16], Eldridge and Dorin [17], McCormack [18], and Greenfield [19]. Dorin provides an overview of a variety of ecosystem models in the arts [20], covering a number of more conceptual applications.…”