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，并参与其中的成像和表现。当代，随着技术的发明，把看不见的变成可见的，艺术家们更多地参与了对抽象科学数据的富有想象力的表现。该项目将自己置于这一传统之中，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。它将以这样的类比为指导，即制作过程之于完成的艺术作品，就像自然选择之于一个物种的个体成员。形态发生的原则将被用来询问形式制作的生成方面。大约100年前，雕塑家高迪耶-布雷斯卡（Gaudier-Breszka）雕刻了一件朴素而有趣的作品，画的是一只鸟正在吞食一条鱼。它捕捉到了一个决定性的时刻，但同时，通过材料和雕刻过程的连续性，鸟和鱼存在于一种互惠的关系中；他们互相变形。Gaudier-Breszka的作品参考了不同文化的雕塑，在这些雕塑中，自然的流动和转变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（D'Arcy Thompson）正在编写他的开创性著作《生长与形态》（On Growth and Form），这本书为生物动力学研究形态发生奠定了基础。我对他描述形态变化的“协调网络”的阐述特别感兴趣。今天，数字能力使更复杂的三维网格成为可能，我计划详细阐述汤普森早期的“铅笔和纸”图。该项目的这一部分将成为使用计算机语言模拟进化动力学的形式发展的更广泛探索的基础。其中一些计算被称为遗传算法（GA），我计划用它们来“生长”一代又一代的形式，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，包括，也许，21世纪的鸟/鱼。然而，这个项目不仅仅是使用聪明的技术。它将着眼于创作过程中更基本的问题。我对形态发生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联系。这两个过程的流动性都很难清晰地表达出来。随机性等特征显得微不足道；试错太平凡了；我们是如何接受看似偶然的东西的：我们努力描述适应的形态。数字技术的使用及其在材料中的选择性体现提供了一种探索这种模式重新转变的方法。我使用的工具，包括3D数字建模，影响了我的工作：它们是主题的一部分，也是最终作品的“外观”。该项目的挑战是艺术家如何在雕塑作品的生产中应对“编程语言”的新工具。这个项目是多学科的，需要他人的合作和专业知识。与自然历史博物馆、动物博物馆、剑桥大学和剑桥大学计算机实验室建立了联系。除了实际的目标和结果之外，该项目还为跨学科的协同和连接创造了一个环境。达尔文的自然选择进化论支持了这一观点。鉴于目前围绕他在科学和文化方面的巨大影响的庆祝活动，我的项目具有明显的话题性。我将利用这一适时背景的机会向更广泛的受众介绍这项研究。《进化的艺术：达尔文、达尔文主义和视觉文化》（Larson和Brauer主编）刚刚出版。我的项目将通过对具体化转化的实践探究，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.