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

长期以来，艺术家们一直受到自然世界形式的启发，并参与到它们的成像和表现中。与此同时，随着将看不见的东西带入可见性的技术的发明，艺术家们更多地参与到抽象科学数据的富有想象力的表现中。这个项目本身就处于这一传统之中，并将做出独特的贡献：它将开发一种描述和反映形式演变和转变的方法。它将通过这样的类比来指导，即制作的过程是对完成的艺术作品，就像自然选择对于一个物种的个体成员一样。约100年前，雕塑家Gaudier-Breszka雕刻了一幅朴素而有趣的鸟儿吞食鱼的作品。它捕捉到了一个决定性的时刻，但也通过材料和雕刻过程的连续性，鸟和鱼以一种相互作用的关系存在；它们相互变形。Gaudier-Breszka的作品指的是不同文化的雕塑，在这些雕塑中，自然的流动和变化可以在特定的物体中结晶。大约在同一时间，生物学家达西·汤普森正在编纂他关于生长和形态的开创性著作，这些著作奠定了形态发生学的基础，也就是生物动力学的研究。我特别感兴趣的是他对“坐标网络”的阐述，这种网络描述了形态变化。今天，数字能力使更复杂的三维网络成为可能，我计划详细说明汤普森早期的纸笔示意图。该项目的这一部分将形成更广泛的探索形式发展的基础，使用计算机语言来模拟进化动力学。其中一些计算被称为遗传算法(GA)，我计划用它们来‘培育’一代又一代的形状，发现选择的规则，并使用这些新技术来制作体现形状变化特征的作品，可能包括21世纪的鸟/鱼。然而，这个项目不仅仅是使用智能技术。它将着眼于创作过程中更基本的问题。我对形态发生学的兴趣使我在制作艺术品的过程和生物动力学原理之间建立了联系。这两个过程的流动性都很难讲清楚。随机性等特征看起来微不足道；试错太平凡了；我们如何才能接受看似偶然的东西：我们难以描述适应的形式。数字技术的使用，以及它在材料中的选择性体现，提供了一种方法来探索这种模式重新转变的方式。我使用的工具，包括3D数字建模，影响着我的工作：它们是最终作品的主题和‘外观’的一部分。该项目的挑战是艺术家如何应对雕塑作品生产中的“编程语言”这一新工具。这个项目是多学科的，需要其他人的合作和专业知识。与自然历史博物馆、动物博物馆、剑桥和剑桥计算机实验室建立了联系。除了实际的目标和成果外，该项目还为跨学科的协同和联系创造了一个背景。达尔文的自然选择进化论支持了这一提议。鉴于目前围绕他在科学和文化方面的巨大影响而举行的庆祝活动，我的项目具有明显的主题性。《进化论的艺术：达尔文、达尔文主义和视觉文化》(拉森和布劳尔主编)正在出版。我的项目将通过对具身转化的基于实践的探究，为这些最新的智力发展做出贡献。

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.