Artistic Evolutionary Computer Systems
Antonino Santos, Julián Dorado, Juan Romero, Bernardino Arcay, Jose Rodriguez
Information and Communications Technology Dept., University of A Coruña, 15071 A Coruña. Spain
(34)981-167000 E: 1302 [nino, julian, jj, cibarcay]@udc.es, joselrc@mail2.udc.es
1
INTRODUCTION
Various projects have been developed in recent years
whose goal is to create, from different approaches,
artificial systems of artistic creation by using evolutionary
computation techniques (Artistic Evolutionary Computer
Systems from now on). These AECS are yielding great
results, both in the fields of musical and visual art. In the
present state of things, we can move on towards the
creation of models of complete artists, that is, systems
which are able to create any kind of visual or musical
work of art. But a series of flaws and requirements must
be solved before accomplishing this dream. This paper
suggests several possible ways of doing so.
The present AECS pose the following problems. There is
no common work, and it seems difficult to reach, since
the works presented deal with different artistic areas, and
they use different evolutionary techniques (sometimes
combined with other computational techniques). This
makes it very difficult to integrate different works, and it
also hinders interdisciplinary collaboration and
comparative analysis. Several things are needed in order
to solve these problems:
1. Definition of a system that comprises the present
works, so that they can interact.
2. Definition of a set of criteria for the assessment of the
quality of the works which are created.
3. Definition of a series of stages within the artistic field
that will enable to focus on each stage the different works
within a common artistic field, tackling the problem in an
increasing way.
2
SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS
Two roles coexist in the present AECS: creator and critic.
The role of creator is carried out by the evolutionary
system, while the role of critic is performed by humans
(Interactively), another evolutionary system (coevolution) or other computational techniques (ANN- ES).
For a more detailed analysis in the musical domain, see
Peter Todd [TODD-99]. In order to integrate these
different approaches, the proposal is to enclose them
within an Artificial Life framework. Thus a general model
is defined which comprises a common environment, a
series of “agents” and a limited set of messages to be
transmitted among them.
These agents may be of two kinds. On the one hand, the
artificial agents will be created by using any type of
evolutionary technique, which may include other
computational techniques. On the other hand, the human
agents are users who interact with the system. The whole
set will be clearly Internet-oriented, so that anyone can
introduce a new artificial agent inside the model or take
part in the system as human agent.
The common environment consists of a series of “worlds”
that comprise agents. Each world represents a different
artistic culture. The participants (human and artificial)
would establish the aesthetic criteria in each world using
the same options.
The messages used in the model would correspond to the
messages of the artistic field in which the model is
contained, apart from the basic messages of an artificial
life system. A historical approach is suggested when
focusing the different stages within the artistic field. This
approach will establish a series of stages, according to the
journey of mankind through the history of music or art. In
this way, we manage to set clearly defined goals,
following a path which has already been explored by
human beings.
The systems which deal with a common artistic field can
be easily integrated within this type of model, enabling
them to interact in a collaboration-competition
environment. We are currently working on this model,
starting from a primitive stage of human music and an
Internet version of Tribe (http://galileo.dc.fi.udc.es/tribe).
References
[TODD-99] Todd, P.M., and Werner, G.M.
Frankensteinian approaches to evolutionary music
composition. In N. Griffith and P.M. Todd (Eds.),
Musical networks: Parallel distributed perception and
performance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford
Books. 1999.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported in part by grants from
CICYT (TEL98-0291).