[-empyre-] Process as paradigm - the generative image

[Mitchell Whitelaw]

hi All,

unlurking briefly here, because Driessens & Verstappen's E-Volver is a work I have been thinking about for quite a while.

Erika you are correct to point out the distinction between image-data (abstract 2d array of pixel values) and image (perceived on the screen) - and the "algorithmic" description is also probably valid .

But this description doesn't capture what I think is both conceptually interesting and powerfully generative about this process - and it relates to the role of the image. The generative model here consists of a number of agents which can move around the image plane and both "read" and manipulate pixel values. The agents follow (evolved) rulesets such that their actions (moving and changing pixels) depend on the pixel values in their neighbourhood. In other words the agents manipulate the image, but at the same time the image manipulates the agents. The relationship could be described as stigmergy - whereby organisms (from ants to humans) both (co) manipulate their environment and are constrained or programmed by it. The environment (here the image) is a rich carrier of structure and information. As I've argued elsewhere this figuring of history and environment as rich and generative is a striking contrast with most other digital generative systems, where the "world" is relatively blank and often impervious to change.

So it might be not strictly correct to cast the image as purely self-generative (ignoring the pixel-agents). But the image does play a significant role here in structuring its own transformation - and the result I think is one of the richest digital generative systems around.

some further reading: 
http://teemingvoid.blogspot.com/2006/07/living-with-e-volved-cultures.html
http://creative.canberra.edu.au/mitchell/papers/SystemStories.pdf

Mitchell
http://teemingvoid.blogspot.com

On 22/05/2010, at 1:38 AM, Erika Jean Lincoln wrote:

> Hi Maria, Yann,
> Isn't it more precise to say that the data set of the digital image is "algorithmicly" processed through an computer which leads to a different data set which is then represented as an image?
> 
> To me the image is not the active agent.
> Thoughts?
> 
> Erika Lincoln
> Electronic Media Artist
> Winnipeg/Manitoba/Canada
> http://www.lincolnlab.net
> 
> 
> --- On Thu, 5/20/10, Maria Verstappen <notnot at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
>> From: Maria Verstappen <notnot at xs4all.nl>
>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Process as paradigm
>> To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>, "Yann Le Guennec" <y at x-arn.org>
>> Received: Thursday, May 20, 2010, 11:37 AM
>> Dear Yann,
>> In the context of this exhibition the notion of "generative
>> image" can be taken quite literal as a still image that
>> generates the next image in real time. Subsequently this new
>> image forms the basis for the next image, etcetera. In case
>> of a screen based work, the viewer experiences this ongoing
>> sequence as a dynamic animation. 
>> Maria
>> 
>> On May 19, 2010, at 10:09 PM, Yann Le Guennec wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello dear Empyreans,
>>> 
>>> systems are open;
>>> entropy is a mistake;
>>> boundaries are in the mind (of the 'modelizer'=
>> someone making a model);
>>> every process is part of n systems;
>>> quantum physics is a biface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biface);
>>> we build tools we need, to prove what we think;
>>> we use tools someone built (some day), to prove what
>> we thought (some day);
>>> 
>>> but ... i would still like to know what is this: a
>> 'generative image';
>>> 
>>> http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/en/714-catalogue
>> (PDF p: 55)
>>> 
>>> Do you mean a picture can generate something, or, an
>> image is necessarily a mind projection ? in the future
>> (unforeseen) ?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> best,
>>> yann
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
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