DIGITAL AUDIO VISUAL PROJECTS

YOU PRETTY LITTLE FLOCKER

You Pretty Little Flocker is part of a larger project that explores the application of ecosystemic process in electronic media arts. An ecosystem is an ecological concept that is used to describe the complex networks of relations between living organisms (humans, ants, fish, birds etc) and the abiotic environment (sun, water, soil etc). Ecosystemic processes such as the transformation of energy and matter, competition, symbiosis and evolution are responsible for the aesthetic and dynamic beauty of the natural world and offer rich inspiration both conceptually and technically for the development of generative and interactive digital art.

More images can be viewed here.

You pretty little Flocker expresses ecosystemic processes both literally and metaphorically: the animation is driven by a model of the emergent behaviour of groups of insects, birds or fish that swarm, flock or school. This model demonstrates how complex coherent group dynamics can arise out of the interaction of many individuals, without the need for top-down control. Rather than visualising the model directly as a swarm, the animation is constructed by revealing the interactions between individuals, creating abstract flowing forms reminiscent of growing plant life. In this way the animation references the indefatigable transformational and self-organising powers of the natural and social world.

Technical Outline:
The underlying model is a basic flocking algorithm which is modified to include size variation and discrimination. Each boid has a variable threshold that determines whether it is influenced by other boids according to their similarity in size. This threshold can be varied such that every individual flocks together, or only those of identical sizes interact. Space is non-torroidal and each time an individual leaves the screen it is repositioned at its starting point. This creates sub-flocks of distinct sized boids that stream from fixed loci.

Rather than visualising the individual boids, the interactions between them are rendered: each time two boids touch, a line is drawn between their centres, the hue determined by their separation.