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In-Depth Information
Ta b l e 2 . 1
General properties of creative ecosystem models
Property
Features
Components & their
environment
Together these constitute the ecosystem
Dynamical system
Enables the ecosystem to temporally adapt and change in response to
internal and external conditions
Self-observation
Provides a link between component action and environment
Self-modification
Allows a component to adjust its behaviour within the system
Interaction
Components must interact with each other and their environment to give rise
to emergent behaviours of the system as a whole
Feedback loops
Provide pathways of control, regulation and modification of the ecosystem
Evolution
Allows long term change, learning and adaptation
2.4 Ecosystem Design Patterns
Within our research group
10
at the Centre for Electronic Media Art we have inves-
tigated ecosystemic processes as a basis for designing or enhancing generative art-
works (see e.g. McCormack (
2001
,
2007b
,
2007a
), Eldridge et al. (
2008
), Eldridge
and Dorin (
2009
), Bown and McCormack (
2010
)). Our long-term aim has been to
develop a catalogue of ecosystemic “design patterns” in the spirit of Gamma et al.
(
1995
), which facilitate the building of creative evolutionary systems. Developing
these patterns does not imply a “plug-and-play” approach where one just selects the
appropriate patterns, connects them together, and then sits back to watch the creativ-
ity evolve. Rather, the patterns serve as starting points in conceptualising a specific
creative system, documenting intermediate mechanisms and the typical behaviours
they produce. Choosing
which
pattern to use and
how
to apply them remains a matter
of significant creative judgement.
Di Scipio sees the artistic system as a “gathering of connected components”, and
it is these components and their interdependencies that must be carefully designed
if successful system-level results are to ensue. Components must additionally be
adaptive to surrounding external conditions and be able to manipulate them.
Table
2.1
summarises the basic properties we think are important to creative
ecosystem models. The key to developing a successful ecosystem model is in the
design of the system's components, their meaning, interpretation and interaction. In
the following sections, I will explore some of these features in more detail, using
completed ecosystem artworks as examples.
2.4.1 Environments: Conditions and Resources
In broad terms, biological environments have two main properties that determine the
distribution and abundance of organisms:
conditions
and
resources
. Conditions are
10
Which has included over the last few years: Oliver Bown, Palle Dahlstedt, Alan Dorin, Alice
Eldridge, Taras Kowaliw, Aidan Lane, Gordon Monro, Ben Porter and Mitchell Whitelaw.
