I've been teaching an algorithm how to draw like a child...
// Friday, 28 October 2022 - 10:00
A week ago, P5JS generated a set of 171 compositions, dancing to the piano strokes of Erik Satie’s “Menus propos enfantins”. Since then, I’ve been trying to teach the robot to draw with different media, watercolours, oil-paint, sprays… It’s decent at it, but still drawing lines, lines, lines. This must be the limit.
// Tuesday, 15 November 2022 - 18:00
I had an idea two days ago. What if I try to teach it basic shapes? Flowers, butterflies, spirals, stars. I’ve been feeding P5JS arrays of dots. It connects them, no problem, but it feels too mechanical, the strokes have no life, they are too predictable, too perfect. I’ve been wondering how do we draw and I think I’ve had an idea. What if I created the shapes as a consecutive set of segments with varying angles? When we draw, we place the pencil on the paper and we perform a continuous and bodily motion, trying to replicate the shape we have in our head.
// Friday, 18 November 2022 - 13:30
Yes! It works, the shapes feel much more lively now. The robot understand shapes and is able to draw them, I’m consistently feeding it a small number of forms. However, it feels uncomfortable, still unsure of what it’s doing. Maybe this music is not helping anymore…
// Wednesday, 23 November 2022 - 18:30
I think the robot is broken. I keep teaching it different shapes and their meanings, but it keeps grouping them together and over-painting them. The shapes are not recognisable, after so much training work! It seems obsessed with clustered spots of colour. No matter what I do, it always goes back to these strange microscopic beings! I’m abandoning this project for now, probably forever.
// Monday, 19 December 2022 - 09:05
Went back to my notes. Maybe those clusters were not a bug, but the robot trying to express itself. I’ve been reading many papers on abstract and surrealist art. These totally look like CoBrA’s human animals! I feel they could have a much deeper meaning, that the robot is starting to show something that resembles human intuition. I’ve decided I cannot act like a firewall. I’m not going to stop it anymore. You want Ensembles?
You’re free to do as you please.
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On Thursday, 22 December 2022, Enfantines II was launched on fx(hash). The collection minted out in a few minutes, producing 439 child-like generative artworks.
