Visual Blends: A Computational System Exploring Digital Creative Spaces

The focus in this paper is the application of evolutionary computing processes in the generation of artworks. I shall ask questions such as, to what extent do artists re-interpret their practice through the context of programming languages, theories of artificial life, or the metaphors they use. Reference will be made to models of creativity, for example, conceptual blending, which may inform our understanding of art systems that evolve over time, exhibit emergent behaviour and how semantic and syntactic issues arise from such processes. Reference will be made to the development of an autonomous, evolutionary drawing system which combines traditional art studio practice (drawing, painting, montage) with computational computer processes. An important aspect of this research is in defining the high level concepts by which the system carries out artistically significant analogies. The paper will discuss how metaphor, analogy or similarity is relevant to defining relationships between the domains (classification of images) in a computational, emergent system