Last Wednesday, my latest swarm-art project “Abstracting the Abstract” (with the collaboration of JJ Merelo and Antonio Mora) won the GECCO Evolutionary Art, Design and Creativity Competition. The work is based on KANTS, a ant algorithm for clustering and classification that was proposed by our research group in 2008. Early this year, I started using KANTS as a generative art tool, by trying to generate 2-dimensional representations of human sleep. The first results will be presented in October in the ECTA2012. “Abstracting the Abstract” goes one step further and uses famous abstract paintings as input samples to the KANTS algorithm. The result is the swarm’s “interpretation” of the painting. Here and here you’ll find, respectively, the artist statement and the technical paper. Below you’ll find an example of a swarm painting, as well as GECCO’s presentation.
Carlos M. Fernandes, Abstracting the Abstract #5 (after Miró)
Congratulations! ;)