VarvaraToulkeridou – Generate – proposal
In this project, I would like to experiment with form generation via a Braitenberg vehicles simulation.
The concept of Braitenberg vehicles was developed by the neuroanatomist Valentino Braitenberg in his book “Vehicles, Experiments in Synthetic Psychology” (full reference: Braitenberg, Valentino. Vehicles, Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. MIT Press, Boston. 1984).
What excites me about this concept is how simple behaviors on the micro-level can result to the emergence of more complex behaviors on the macro-level.
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Below there is some precedent generative art work using the concept of Braitenberg vehicles:
Reas, Tissue Software, 2002
In Vehicles, Braitenberg defines a series of 13 conceptual constructions by gradually building more complex behavior with the addition of more machinery. In the Tissue software, Reas uses machines analogous to Braitenberg’s Vehicle 4. Each machine has two software sensors to detect stimuli in the environment and two software actuators to move; the relationships between the sensors and actuators determine the specific behavior for each machine.
Each line represents the path of each machine’s movement as it responds to stimuli in its environment. People interact with the software by positioning the stimuli on the screen. Through exploring different positions of the stimuli, an understanding of the total system emerges from the subtle relations between the simple input and the resulting fluid visual output.
Yanni Loukissas, Shadow constructors, 2004
In this project, Braitenburg vehicles move over a 2d imagemap collecting information about light and dark spots (brightness levels). This information is used to construct forms in 3d, either trails or surfaces.
What I find interesting about this project is that information from the 3d form is projected back onto the source imagemap. For example, the constructed surfaces cast shaddows on the imagemap. This results in a feedback loop which augments the behavior of vehicles.
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I would like to implement a Braitenberg vehicles simulation where the vehicles will move in 3d space and their positions in space will correspond to the control vertices of a surface. This way, while moving in space, interacting to the various stimuli, the vehicles will generate surfaces. I expect that by linking together groups of vehicles, each group having a different set of behavior different surfaces in space will be generated. I have not decided yet what the stimulus will be, however I will try to have the evolving surfaces contributing to the stimulus so I can have a feedback loop that will augment the behavior of the vehicles. I am thinking of constraining how far away each vehicle can move from the rest of its group by linking them with springs.
As far as libraries are concerned, I will start with using toxilibs for the geometry and peasycam to navigate in space.
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