MOOC Simon Fraser University - Canada - 2017
Ida Brandão eportfolio
Session 2: History Of Generative Art, Chance Operations, and Chaos Theory
Generative art is nothing new, and this session goes through the history of the field from pre-history to the popularization of computers. We study chance, noise, fractals, chaos theory, and their applications in visual art and music.
In topic 2 some history of generative art is made pointing out a few authors such as in the literary field, dating back to the 15th century Jean Machinot who composes Litanies de la Vierge (1461-1464):
«…un poème combinatoire sous-titré « Oraison qui peut se dire par huit ou seize vers, tant en rétrogradant que autrement ». Il s’agit d’un ensemble de 8 vers qui possèdent des rimes intérieures, de sorte qu’on peut en extraire d’autres litanies correctement rimées. Il est possible, par ce simple procédé, d’obtenir, d’après Bernard Magné, 43 008 litanies différentes à partir de ce poème de 8 vers !
Les 8 vers initiaux sont :
D’honneur sentier, confort sûr et parfait,
Rubis chéri, saphir très précieux,
Cœur doux et cher, support bon en tout fait,
Infini prix, plaisir mélodieux,
Éjouis ris, souvenir gracieux,
Dame de sens, mère de Dieu très nette,
Appuis rassis, désir humble joyeux,
M’âme défends, très chère pucelette.»
Qu’est-ce que la littérature générative combinatoire ? – https://www.olats.org/livresetudes/basiques/litteraturenumerique/10_basiquesLN.php
In the XVII century the german poet Quirinus Kuhlmann composes XLIe baiser d’amour céleste : l’alternance des choses humaines(1671).
«Il s’agit d’un poème dans lequel certains mots peuvent permuter de toutes les façons possibles. On peut alors générer 6 227 020 800 poèmes à partir du poème initial qui contient 4 strophes. Le premier et le dernier mot de chaque vers sont fixes et les 13 autres peuvent permuter.»
In 1961, a collective of french authors and mathematicians – http://oulipo.net/ – make generative experiments with structures to produce literature:
«Recherchant les structures formelles linguistiques utilisables par les écrivains et les poètes, l’OULIPO a une approche mathématique et algorithmique de la littérature. Pour ce faire, ces expérimentateurs, comme ils se nomment, se donnent des contraintes, c’est-à-dire un certain nombre de règles fixes, intangibles et prédéfinies qu’ils utilisent de façon systématique pour produire un texte.»
OULIPO extends to Jacques Bens, Noël Arnaud, Pierre Lescure, Georges Perec, Paul Fournel, Jacques Roubaud and to USA with Paul Braffort. Marcel Duchamp, Italo Calvino and Harry Mathews.
«L’œuvre fondatrice de L’OULIPO, les Cent mille milliards de poèmes [14] de Raymond de Queneau, connaîtra de multiples programmations informatiques et deviendra une référence pour la littérature numérique.
In 1964, Jean Baudot publishes «La Machine à Ecrire», the first book to be created by a computer using the following procedures:
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1. la machine élabore une structure d’éléments phraséologiques qui respecte les règles de syntaxe ;
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2. la machine détermine le genre, le nombre ou le temps de chacun de ces éléments ;
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3. la machine choisit des mots dans un lexique, afin de construire la phrase définie par la structure syntactique ;
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4. la machine rédige la phrase en respectant les règles de concordance, d’accord, d’élision, etc.
Pedro Barbosa é um dos primeiros investigadores da literatura gerada por computador, com o seu programa SINTEXT
The Continuator – a music programme that mimics a player’s style and generates identical music as a continuum, turning difficult to identify what has been played by the human and what has been played by the machine – a machine learning programme http://francoispachet.fr/continuator/continuator.html
Aaron - a computer generator of art created by artist Harold Cohen – http://www.aaronshome.com/aaron/aaron/index.html
Creativity at the meta-level – https://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/1569
A panel discussion on Creativity and Computers with Margaret Boden – http://www.vega.org.uk/video/programme/81
An interesing TED talk on how computers are learning to be Creative
A long list of programmes based on fractal equations were included in the resources of session 2, both for music and image:
ArtSong – http://www.artsong.org/ – is an integrated algorithmic music composition system that uses algorithms to generate musical structure and compose MIDI parts within that structure. ArtSong™ provides a wide variety of algorithms and functions including: quadratic and iterated function system attractors; cyclic-pattern generators; image-to-music, text-to-music, mandelbrot-set, and julia-set functions; several probability distributions; and more.
Fractal Tune Smithy – http://robertinventor.com/software/tunesmithy/music.htm – you can vary the parameters to make them into your own tunes. With just a small change the entire tune transforms completely – just as happens with fractal images. No experience of composition is needed for these.
Aural fractals – https://www.auralfractals.net/ – fractal music generator that creates endless musical themes from Chaos
FractMus – http://www.gustavodiazjerez.com/fractmus/index.html – is a freeware algorithmic-music generator, that is, it creates melodies using mathematical formulas.
Incendia – http://www.incendia.net/ – Fractal Engine that allows you to design and explore the realm of 3D Fractals
XenoDream – http://www.xenodream.com/
Apophysis – http://www.apophysis.org/ – freeware fractal flame for Windows
Fractal Explorer – http://www.fractal-explorer.com/ – this website has the aim to introduce you to the world of fractals. A world that seems to be chaotic but when you look closer, patterns emerge. Not only are fractals theoretical mathematical constructs; the theory of fractals can be applied to fractals in nature, too.
Fractint – http://www.nahee.com/spanky/www/fractint/fractint.html – freeware fractal generator created for IBMPC’s and compatible computers.
MandelBulber – http://www.mandelbulber.com/ – is an experimental application that helps to make rendering 3D Mandelbrot fractals much more accessible. A few of the supported 3D fractals: Mandelbulb, Mandelbox, BulbBox, JuliaBulb, Menger Sponge, Quaternion, Trigonometric, Hypercomplex, and Iterated Function Systems (IFS). All of these can be combined into infinite variations with the ability to hybridize different formulas together.
Frax – http://fract.al/ – the reborn Frax, now orchestrating new algorithms in an intricate dance between CPU and GPU is literally… 400 times faster! Totally immersive in realtime you can now zoom into more than a trillion-to-one depth range of the classic Mandelbrot set and, for the first time ever, the more self-similar Julia sets can be zoomed… infinitely!
Ultra Fractal – http://www.ultrafractal.com/ – with Ultra Fractal, you can choose from thousands of fractal types and coloring algorithms, zoom in as far as you want, use gradients to add color, and apply multiple layers to combine different fractals in one image.
Fractal Dementia – http://www.fractaldimentia.com/ – the art of Mark Townsend
Étiènne Saint – Amant exhibition – http://www.chaoscopia.com/nouveautes_en.html
Bogdan Soban art – http://www.soban-art.com/index-ang.asp
Re-visiting Google’s Deep Dream Generator - https://deepdreamgenerator.com/
Leon Theramin's musical instrument
Leon Theramin's music machine became popular in the 20's and he gave many performances inside and outside Russia. He was a scientist and in his electro magnetic experiences arrived to the invention of his music machine. The sensation at the time looked almost sci-fi, since he could produce music just with the movement of the hands without touching a sound machine or instrument. Movies produced at the time made use of Theramin's sound. This video gives an historical account of the invention and explains very well how the machine works
Leon Theramin life story is also very curious, with espionage and kidnapping suspicion's surrounding him - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Theremin - his life would be worth a movie.
I see Theramin's experimentations as a precursor of interactive art, which fascinates me and has immense potential as a stimulus for special needs situations.
A younger Theramin explaining his invention
and an older Theramin explaining it once more
Generative music instruments with therapeutic applications
Short presentation of Soundbeam 5 by Tim Swingler, beams and switches are used to perform a few of of the pre-programmed soundsets and illustrate basic functions of the system.
Two new assistive music devices that open a world of fun and music therapy to children with special needs: The Beamz, interactive music maker + The Skoog, tactile music cube
Randomness
Randomness is the lack of pattern or predictability in events.[1] A random sequence of events, symbols or steps has no orderand does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual random events are by definition unpredictable, but in many cases the frequency of different outcomes over a large number of events (or "trials") is predictable. For example, when throwing two dice, the outcome of any particular roll is unpredictable, but a sum of 7 will occur twice as often as 4. In this view, randomness is a measure of uncertainty of an outcome, rather than haphazardness, and applies to concepts of chance, probability, and information entropy.
The fields of mathematics, probability, and statistics use formal definitions of randomness. In statistics, a random variable is an assignment of a numerical value to each possible outcome of an event space. This association facilitates the identification and the calculation of probabilities of the events. Random variables can appear in random sequences. A random process is a sequence of random variables whose outcomes do not follow a deterministic pattern, but follow an evolution described by probability distributions. These and other constructs are extremely useful in probability theory and the various applications of randomness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomness
Chaos Theory
Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focused on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. 'Chaos' is an interdisciplinary theory stating that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, self-organization, and reliance on programming at the initial point known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The butterfly effect describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state, e.g. a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory