E-volved Cultures XXWide

Driessens & Verstappen

30 October 2008

Variable screen

Variable screen. Software for Mac OS X, installation with 2 projectors Supported by: Mondriaan Foundation, Ámsterdam Acknowledgements: The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Architecture and Design, Ámsterdam Courtesy: VOUS ETES ICI, Ámsterdam

E-volved Cultures XXWide is an installation in which an artificial landscape grows in real time. Virtual organisms that leave visual traces in interaction with their environment generate a dynamic pixel-landscape. The pixel grid forms the environment, the habitat, of eight artificial “mono-cellular” creatures, each having the size of a single pixel. They are simple autonomous machines that operate according to a built-in program. The creatures are able to change the colour of the pixel they stand on, and move to a neighbouring pixel. The behaviour of the individual creatures as well as the behaviour of 
the group as a whole is developed with the E-volver software that applies artificial genetics and evolutionary techniques.