[-empyre-] Re: Intoducing: Mauro Annunziato & Ken Rinaldo

["Annunziato" <mauro.annunziato@tiscali.it>]

> It's my pleasure to introduce two more guest a-life artists to the
> list. Mauro Annunziato and Ken Rinaldo represent some of the diversity
> within a-life art, as well as some of the commonalities. Mauro's work
> with "artificial societies" of graphical agents, produces elegant and
> intricate two-dimensional images. Ken works in robotic and bio-robotic
> sculpture, creating interactive, autonomous, engaging systems which
> exemplify his aspirations for a sustainable fusion between biological
> and technological systems. I will hand over to them to send opening
> statements, and perhaps give a personal perspective on the discussion
> so far.

> Mitchell

Dear empyrean,
I thank Mitchell and all you for invitation to this interesting discussion 
about a-life and art.

I am not a critic of this movement, I am just as a "traveller" along this 
strange interference area between art and science who imagine virtual or 
hybrid (real-virtual) worlds that evocate/arise questions about our 
roots/mind/society/future. I try to catch all the stimulus that science can 
give me and all the freedom that art can give me but the science cannot. I 
hope to give you a little contribution, please excuse for my clearly 
not-native English.

Some words about an "opening statement"

My experience with alife started as an error. In 1994, fascinated by the 
self-organization effects I found in the "Cretti" of Alberto Burri, a well 
known Italian artist (1915-1995, look this image 
http://www.francescomorante.it/pag_3/315bc.htm ), after some tentative with 
cellulose and Indian ink, I tried to reproduce the ink fractures on the 
computer. A lucky conceptual mistake happened; instead of a mechanic model I 
made use of an "animistic model". Inside it, the fractures move 
autonomously, according to a genetic code of numeric parameters. Living 
patterns of filaments were generated by this experiment: natural, human and 
artificial shapes, ancestral dreams. The "organic quality" of the image came 
from the dynamical of the whole population of fractures-filaments. In that 
years I started the production of a collection of images ("Artificial 
Societies",  www.plancton.com/artsoc/asociety.htm and 
www.plancton.com/artsoc/artware2.htm ) which were a fundamental experience 
in my path.

All these images starts with a single (or few) dna/filament/individual and 
it grows through reproduction (branching), genetic mutations, clashing. 
Although, in the building of this environment, I was driven by purely 
aesthetic research, it was surprising to me the incredible potential of 
these simple environments to evocate evolution and social behaviour.  In the 
subsequent years, I continued to evolve genetics, behaviour and aesthetics 
of these images, each time trying to push as far as possible accidental 
discoveries. In this sense I can say that the computer was really not only 
an "instrument" but the real extension of my mind in a play of "create 
model - explore model - discovery exceptions - again modelling exception - 
come back and restart the cycle".

Many times I tried to interpret the content expressed in that images, but up 
to now I  cannot say what exactly is emerging. Emergent selection, 
self-organization, increasing evolutionary pressure, self-constraining, 
pioneers and emulators, niches of evolution, creation of biodiversity, all 
these concepts are some of possible readings but many doubts are still 
without an answer. In example it is quite strange the development of a 
social cooperation during the evolution: groups of individuals evolve 
towards a shorter lifetime in order to have a social success as a group. I 
cannot say if this is a form of "group selection" or better "a selection 
driven by a self-organization principle". In few word, I agree with Paul (hi 
Paul !) about the fact that many artists managing these things, really don't 
know what is happening "down there".

After this experience, I joined with a research/musician, Piero Pierucci 
(co-founder with me and the painter Oscar Gemma de Julio of the Plancton art 
group '94), to create an audio-visual interactive installation named 
"Relazioni Emergenti" (Emerging Relationships). In this installation, the 
previous images were developed dynamically and visitors can supply a sort of 
"life whiff" towards the artificial individuals they approach with their 
hand/body (difficult to explain in few words, please see here 
www.plancton.com/relem/relemerg.htm ). Others dimensions were added to the 
initial project: sound parallel architectures generated by the living 
filaments and different emerging relations between real people and 
artificial individuals in a hybrid real-virtual ecosystem.

I think the telling of this experience should be enough to explain how many 
different ways to the alife are possible and how working with emergence is 
far from first use of the computer as a "digital paintings" ("old-fashion 
computer art" ?) or "visualizer" ("old-fashion fractal exploration"). This 
story could give an idea why we choose the term "Art of Emergence" to 
identify our work. In these experiences, the artwork is a generative context 
of shapes and reactions that should be able to produce "emergent qualities" 
during the evolution process. Tipycally the idea of emergence is connected 
with global properties of the artwork due to the chaotic local interaction 
of a multidude of elements and interaction with people. The creative process 
is a dynamic and dialectical interference between the artist, the artwork 
and the visitors in order to drive an evolutionary aesthetic process. In 
this context  interaction increases the dimensionality and this gives more 
chances to the emergence of not-programmed shapes/evolutions.

You can find several other realizations in the website www.plancton.com. 
Maybe the most interesting by the alife point of view is "E-Sparks" 
(www.plancton.com/esparks/esparks.htm and 
www.plancton.com/papers/evolang.pdf ) that is a still-in-progress project 
for the creation of artificial society which develop an autonomous shared 
language cross-fertilized by the interaction with humans. See also "Aurora 
di Venere", a theatre performance of dancers and digital entities 
(www.plancton.com/aurora/aurora.htm ).
You find several papers describing in detail the artist statement, artworks 
and realization here: www.plancton.com/papers/papers.htm

Some comment about previous discussion

I read the interesting discussion of this list up to now. Some questions 
remains to me still open. A general comment is about qualitative 
interpretation of a-life. Obviously this is my subjective point of view and 
particularly the point of view is the "balcony of art" rather that one of 
the science.

When I think to a-life, basically I am thinking not only to the "artificial 
beings" but especially to the human implications, both in terms of evocation 
of our evolution/mind either in terms of expansion of the human in the 
digital dimension.
What I find interesting is the continuous emotional dance between something 
that is alien but maybe is also inside us, between the future and roots of 
the humans, between attraction for new life and ancestral panic about it, 
and finally positive and negative use of it (i.e. creativity or military 
goals).

To me, one the most significant focalisation of the a-life paradigm is the 
importance of the SOCIAL CONTEXT. This aspect can be expressed trough the 
genetic evolution, the information exchange, the swarm intelligence. The 
idea is that qualities like aesthetics, intelligence, behaviour emerge not 
as a property of a single, but a collective property of an 
interacting-evolving group and their interaction with the environment. This 
aspect, that traces the difference between AI and AL, has many important 
consequences which can influence several questions arisen in the discussion.

In example, the idea of "self modifying code" is important but it is not the 
only way to the emergence. This idea is not intuitive. Let to think about 
the humans: is it usual that a human being change dna during the life ?
At the contrary, try to imagine "communities of interacting/reproducing 
codes" (as usual in multi thread programming). It is more easy in this case, 
accept the idea of the digital evolution as progressive 
selection/organization of co-evolving codes. The difference is the "social 
context", this makes the difference.

Emergence cannot be in a single "agent", except the case in which the agent 
is itself a swarm of sub-agents (maybe this is the case of CAs or the 
biological brain). This is the reason why artworks based on a-life approach 
can show a dimension which was not so developed (or at least consciousness) 
in other forms of art. We could speak of an "aesthetics of the biodiversity" 
or "emotion of the self-organization" (see "Autopoiesis" of Ken Rinaldo) 
which are typical in this case.

Finally about authorship (speaking only for me). I am the creator of the 
environment, the artist who "puts in act" the process, the creator of the 
"initial memes". This is the full authorship I can claim with my signature 
on the interactive installations.
For as regard the consequences of this process (the future states assumed by 
the artwork in the interaction with people) I only can be a "contributor" to 
a process of dissemination/mutation of the memes. Visitors are both 
contributors like the hardware (don't forget the sensors, the body of the 
sw) and the software iteself (likely it doesn't got a bank account  ;-) ).
On the other hand if I try to have a strong control over the creations of my 
creation I destroy the emergence and the beauty of the creation itself.

Mauro

______________________________________
Mauro Annunziato
Plancton Art Studio
Via Ponton dell'Elce 9, 00061 Anguillara Sabazia, Rome, Italy
Tel. 39-0630484405, 39-069981102, 39-3381699076
plancton@plancton.com
www.plancton.com