A swarm art project. Finalist of the GECCO 2012 Evolutionary Art, Design, and Creativity Competition.

1. Abstracting the Abstract
A swarm art project, by Carlos M. Fernandes
• KANTS algorithm by Carlos M. Fernandes, Antonio Mora and J.J. Merelo
• Geneura Group, University of Granada
author’s webpage: www.carlosmfernandes.com
GECCO Evolutionary Art Competion,
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Philadelphia, USA, 2012

2. KANTS
• KANTS is a swarm intelligence algorithm for
clustering:
– A. Mora, C.M. Fernandes, J.J. Merelo, V. Ramos, J.L.J. Laredo, A.C. Rosa, “KohonAnts. A
Self-Organizing Ant Algorithm for Clustering and Pattern Classification,” In Proceedings
of the 11th International Conference on Artificial Life, S. Bullock et al., Eds., MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA, pp. 428-435, 2008.
• Basics: Data samples move on a grid of vectors
and self-organize using the vectors of the grid
for communicating (while changing those
vectors).
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3. Abstracting the Abstract
• If we find ways to visualize the grid, we observe how
the data samples have “shaped” the grid/habitat.
data Grid of
KANTS
samples vectors
Example above: grid created by one night sleep data samples (with three variables → direct
translation to RGB). The pherogenic sleep drawings project.
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4. Abstracting the Abstract
Idea: get the data samples (three-variable RGB vectors) directly from a coloured image
and then use these samples as KANTS output.
Data
samples=
KANTS
list of RGB
vectors
Grid
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5. Abstracting the Abstract #1
(after Mondrian)
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6. Abstracting the Abstract #1
(after Pollock)
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7. Abstracting the Abstract #1
(after Kupka)
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8. Abstracting the Abstract #1
(after Kandinsky)
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9. Abstracting the Abstract #1
(after Miró)
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10. Distributed Creativity
• The ants/samples that shape the environment
(canvas).
• The original paintings.
• The idea/concept.
• “Reinterpretation” of the original (abstract)
works: ABSTRACTING THE ABSTRACT
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Philadelphia, USA, 2012