[dorkbotdc-blabber] some blather about last nights dork

[Alberto Gaitán]

Thanks, Douglas! Let us know when you want to come down so Gareth & I 
can collect the appropriate tribute!

Alberto




On 5/28/08 3:55 PM, douglas repetto wrote:
> 
> Sounds like a terrific meeting! One of these days I'll make it down to 
> one...
> 
> 
> Meanwhile, there's a good list called "eugene" that covers many of the 
> topics Philip touched on below.
> 
> http://www.generative.net/mailman/listinfo/eu-gene
> 
> 
> 
> best,
> douglas
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Philip Kohn wrote:
>> I really enjoyed last nights presentations.
>> Unfortunately I arrived too late to see the Data_Scape in action.
>> Pindar's talk really got me thinking about creativity.
>> I would really like to know more about how things like balance, and 
>> composition
>> are handled without randomness.
>> I really love the idea of seeing how far you can get without any 
>> random numbers.
>> I've always relied on some sort of random functions, even if they are 
>> carefully tuned and filtered,
>> but in a way it is really a cop out.
>>
>> Most of the tools of artificial intelligence (neural nets, backprop, 
>> etc.) are designed to capture
>> regularities in the input/output transformation.
>> But I think art and creativity revolve around the interplay of 
>> expectations and surprises.
>> You have to have rules, but you also have to break them, and break 
>> them the right amount and
>> in the right contexts.
>> You need AI tools that can take a model of the regularities and figure 
>> out how to make these interesting
>> and strong exceptions.
>> The worst thing you can do as an artist is to create something that 
>> looks like a mistake.
>> (Although you can repeat that "mistake" and then it may become good 
>> art again!)
>> The exceptions need to stand out.
>>
>> I have done some art evolution, using my own ratings as a fitness 
>> function.
>> In fact I became so obsessed with it that I was up all night rating 
>> thousands of images.
>> The best ones would get mutated to make the next batch, etc.
>> This was in 1998, and I can't find any of the images at this point :<
>> I really had to stop doing it because it was adversely effecting my life.
>>
>>
>> Here are some of the best links:
>>
>> One of my heroes, Karl Sims (what a perfect name!).
>> http://www.karlsims.com/papers/siggraph91.html
>> http://www.karlsims.com/
>>
>> Also check out his creatures that evolved in a simulated physical 
>> environment selected by their ability to walk, or swim or jump.
>> http://www.karlsims.com/evolved-virtual-creatures.html
>> It is amazing how "creative" some of these bots are in the way they move!
>> I'd love to evolve some more realistic bots that could actually be built.
>>
>> General history of interactive evolution, art
>> http://www.asu.edu/cfa/art/people/faculty/collins/emergence/emergence.htm
>>
>> An installation using interactive evolution to make abstract videos
>> http://www.xs4all.nl/~notnot/E-volverLUMC/E-volverLUMC.html
>>
>>
>> Didn't know about this one!  You can evolve some pretty interesting 
>> images in a collaborative online pool.
>> http://picbreeder.org/
>>
>> Another image breeder that you can run on your own computer.
>> http://simons.intlab.soka.ac.jp/~unemi/sbart/
>>
>>
>>
>> There is a big problem with all this.
>> When you have a lot of parameters, or knobs to twiddle, you need a 
>> minimum of twice that number of example datasets.
>> So if you really want to evolve each brush stroke, you will need a lot 
>> of user input.
>> Anything artistic is going to have zillions of parameters.  Maybe that 
>> is a big part of creativity is finding
>> your way around the space of possibilities without getting lost or 
>> overwhelmed!
>>
>> One solution would be to evolve a "critic" that evaluates the results, 
>> and then let it work automatically.
>> I have some ideas about how to evolve the critic based on examples of 
>> good art that can be found easily on the web.
>>
>> Blabber, blabber....
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ........................................................................
>> .......dorkbot dc: people doing strange things with electricity.........
>> ................... http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotdc .......................
>> ........................................................................
>