AI Sculpting, Voronoi Fonts, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

#061 - Creative Coding / Generative Arts Weekly

Creativity thrives where its roots are crowded. -Ozzie Zehner

Good morning friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Some of you might remember the following mind map I compiled a couple of years ago. I have wanted to make it more interactive and have finally made some progress.

You can find it here on Observable. It isn’t finished, but I have it to the point that I need to make a few more changes to make the nodes clickable to their link and, hopefully, a complete write-up!

I hope you all have had a wonderful week!

Who Am I?

Last week’s image was Harold Cohen.

Here is an excellent overview of his life and work! I thought it would be easier to watch and learn about his pioneering work with AARON.

Do you find these “history lessons” exciting or engaging? I’d love it if you could take a quick moment to let me know in the pole. I want to ensure I spend the right amount of time on the right things!

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AI Sculpting: co-creation in the age of artificial intelligence

The human interest in the manipulation of objects for an aesthetic purpose is very antique. By experimenting with different tools and techniques the old masters studied how material can be shaped into form. Transferring this curiosity to the age of technology, in 2020 we engineered a machine-learning process to observe the evolution of an AI learning how to sculpt a 3D model. While most of our art projects are guided by an open process the aim is to achieve a visual result in the end. With this project it was different. To best experience AI as the creator and to learn from it became our main pursuit.

Difference Maps

Projection onto (non-)convex sets, e.g. the “difference map” algorithm which was previously used to solve Sudoku puzzles (which is of-course another problem amenable to Linear Programming). A slightly longer walk-through of the projections I used can be found here.

More than Words

Artistic fonts offer a way to transform any text into an art print, interactive software, or animation. Thus we can view artistic fonts as a form of generative art: whereas most generative art is determined by an initial random seed, with fonts the “seed” is arbitrary text. An advantage of this approach is that the resulting print can encode one or more messages. With puzzle fonts, where the letters are encoded but not explicit in the glyphs, this message can be hidden within the resulting artwork. We demonstrate this approach to generative art using a series of mathematical and puzzle fonts we have designed over the years, which are available as free interactive web apps from https://erikdemaine.org/fonts

New Approaches to Knowledge & Simulations

In this in-depth video I examine Knowledge Systems and Simulations to explore new approaches to understanding nature and reality.

Just another way of thinking through simulations that you may find interesting to watch.

Liquid Physics Using Cellular Automation

One interesting way to represent liquids in a grid based world, is to use a form of cellular automaton. You may have heard of cellular automata from the popular “Conway’s Game of Life”, where cells evolve based on a set of rules that they adhere to.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before.

The cadence and literacy of the writing are at the following levels. First, the story is essentially a homage to humanity, with a touch of nostalgia that reminds us of our childhood. The dialogue is exceptionally well crafted; many of you will appreciate it.

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