2005
Tadpoles
Brushstrokes 996
48” x 78”
Fascinating interplay of hubs, centric and eccentric energy define the painting’s 996 swarming tadpoles uneven distribution and the radial gaps in the overall pattern. Dulcinea’s wrist creates urgency through brushstroke.
AI Techniques
1) The tadpoles were created using boids and swarming theory, where 993 tadpoles are caught up in vectors of directional energy, and
2) The background was created using artificial life’s genetic programming coupled with complex adaptive systems, to create the painting’s background pattern and textual brushwork.
Tadpoles Design Pattern The tadpoles’ objective was to swarm toward two positively-charged destinations.
To achieve the uneven distribution within the overall swarming movement, thirty-eight hidden spheres of negatively charged and varying radii were dropped into the swarm space. Each smaller sphere represented areas of repulsion, i.e. areas the tadpoles had to swim around while on their swarming journey.
Thus, you can see the different radial gaps in the overall pattern.
Robot’s New Brushwork
The actual tadpole brushstroke was fairly complex. The robot wrist performs a series of complex movements to capture the tadpole gesture in a single stroke. It was intentional that each brushstroke employ slight variations to be truly unique.
Each tadpole represents an important note of directional, visual energy. The complementary colors of orange on blue adds to this energy.
The background used a larger, flat brush with a softer, wet-on-wet, color-blending technique. This criss-crossing technique was borrowed from a French method called balaye’, pioneered by French painter Georges Seurat.