Coded Chimera: exploring relationships between sculptural form making and biological morphogenesis through computer modelling

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Artists have long been inspired by forms of the natural world and have been involved in their imaging and representation. Contemporarily, with the invention of technologies that bring the unseen into visibility, artists have been engaged even more with imaginative representations of abstract scientific data. This project situates itself within this tradition and will make a unique contribution: it will develop a method for describing and reflecting the evolution and transformations of form. It will be guided by the analogy that the process of making is to the finished work of art, as natural selection is to an individuated member of a species. Principles of morphogenesis will be employed to interrogate the generative aspects of form-making.About 100 years ago, the sculptor Gaudier-Breszka carved a modest and playful work of a bird devouring a fish. It captures a decisive moment but also, through the continuity of the material and the carving process, the bird and fish exist in a reciprocal relationship; they morph into one another. Gaudier-Breszka's work refers to the sculptures of diverse cultures where the flux and transformations of nature can become crystallized in a particular object. Around the same time, the biologist D'Arcy Thompson was compiling his seminal work On Growth and Form, which laid the foundations of morphogenesis, the study of biological dynamics. I am particularly interested in his elaboration of 'co-ordinate networks' which describe morphological change. Today, digital capacities make possible more complex 3-dimensional meshworks and I plan to elaborate on Thompson's earlier 'pencil and paper' diagrams. This part of the project will form the basis of a more extended exploration of the development of form using computer languages to simulate evolutionary dynamics. Some of these computations are known as genetic algorithms (GA), and I plan to use them to 'grow' generations of forms, discover rules for selection, and use these new techniques to make work which embodies shape shifting features, including, perhaps, a 21st century bird/fish.This project, however, is not just about using clever technology. It will look at more fundamental issues of the creative process. My interest in morphogenesis leads me to make connections between the process of making an artwork and the principles of biological dynamics. The fluidity of either process is difficult to articulate. Features such as randomness appear trivial; trial and error is just too mundane; how do we come to embrace what appears accidental: we struggle to describe the shape of adaptations. The use of digital technology allied with its selective embodiment in material provides a method to explore the way such patterns transform anew. The tools I use, including 3D digital modelling, influence my work: they are part of the subject matter and 'the look' of final pieces. The challenge of the project is how an artist responds to the new tools of 'programming languages' in the production of sculptural objects. This project is multidisciplinary, calling on the collaboration and expertise of others. Links have been established with the Natural History Museum, the Zoological Museum, Cambridge, and the Cambridge Computer Lab. In addition to practical objectives and outcomes, the project creates a context for synergy and connectivity across disciplines.Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection underpins this proposal. My project has a palpable topicality in the light of the current celebrations around his huge influence in science and culture. I will use the opportunity of this timely context to expose the research to a wider audience.The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture (Larson and Brauer, eds) is hot off the press. My project will contribute to these latest intellectual developments through a practice based inquiry of embodied transformations.