[eu-gene] Generative materials

[Paul Harrison]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Philip Galanter
<list at philipgalanter.com> wrote:
>
> You may recall that some time ago I enquired on the eugene list regarding
> generative art without computers.  At this time I've narrowed down my
> curatorial theme to generative materials. This could include emergent form
> from chemical reactions, compounds, liquids of varying density, corrosives,
> stains, reactions with electric charge or magnetic fields, fire, bubbles,
> freezing, etc.
> If you've done artwork using self-organizing materials or know of others you
> can bring to my attention, please let me know.  It would probably be OK to
> just post it to the list.  Perhaps it will stimulate additional discussion.

Tile pieces are interesting. I've played around a little with these,
though not in the context of art. I feel they help clarify why there
are materials that display emergent patterns -- on the small scale
generative materials are like 3D tile pieces, with sites on their
surface that lock together with specific other kinds of sites. The
space of simple tile pieces is quite densely populated with tiles that
will form pleasing patterns, so generative matierals can arise by
chance quite easily. Tile pieces can even represent arbitrary
computations.

Javascript toy: http://www.logarithmic.net/ghost.xhtml
There's a chapter in my phd thesis on the topic:
http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/thesis

As jigsaw pieces, they make an interesting toy. You can apply your
creativity to make patterns, but the pieces constrain the patterns you
can make.

-- 
Paul Harrison

Victorian Bioinformatics Consortium / Monash University
pfh at logarithmic.net
jabber pfh at jabber.org.au
http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/