Class 36: Randomized Images

Held: Friday, April 6, 2007

Summary: Today we consider one potentially interesting application of script-fu: The use of script-fu and Scheme's random procedure to produce unpredictable works.

Related Pages:

• EBoard.
• Lab: Randomized Drawing.
• Reading: Randomized Drawing.

Due

• Exam 2

Notes:

• EC for participating in Hoofin' It.

Overview:

• Randomized Drawing - Some Theory.
• Randomized Drawing - Some Practice.
• Lab.

Randomized Images - The Theory

• Non-mainstream art philosophy: The images that come from random processes (or from nature) can be as interesting as the images that come from actively engaged artists.
• One important movement: Dada. (Early 20th century; also a reaction to facism and industrialization and ...)
• Disclaimer: After creation by random processes, some filtering of good from bad still happens.
• Modernized suggestion:
  • Randomized processes can provide inspiration
  • The ability to constrain some aspects of the process can provide a new mechanism for creation.
• Detour: Genetic algorithms
  • Algorithms generate images
  • Different parameters create different images
  • Different algorithms create different images
  • Apply natural selection:
    • Evaluate the "fitness" of various images
    • Combine code, using a model in which more fit images are more likely to participate in combinations
  • Often done in Scheme
  • Large scale genetic art - Electric Sheep (Google it)

Randomized Images - Practice

• Many of the procedures we've written or used have numeric parameters.
• Those parameters can be generated randomly.
• Many of the procedures we've written take one of a restricted number of inputs (e.g., there are only so many brushes).
• Those inputs can also be selected randomly.

Lab

• Do the lab.