For the past year i've been working with patterns in my artwork. My patterns are usually symmetrical, planned out and create interesting positive and negative shapes. Here is an example to the left of one of my patterns titled, "Dancers II".
I wanted to create something for my mid semester project that incorporated what I already do with ideas that i've explored in this class.
Brian Knep introduced the idea of "emergent behavior" into our class when he showed us his "Healing" series. His computer software was programed to behave in a similar way to those animals that exhibit emergent behavior.
Emergent behavior is when complex systems or behaviors arise out of the multiplicity of relatively simple interactions (Wikipedia). An typical example of this is the flocking of birds. Birds follow a set of basic guidelines which naturally has them come together as a group without crashing into each other. Other animals do this as well such as fish and insects.
The basic rules that these animals follow are:
Separation: avoid crowding neighbors
Alignment: steer toward average heading of neighbors
Cohesion: steer towards average position of neighbors
With these, they are able to organize themselves into complex patterns and movements.
Brian Knep isn't the only one who uses emergent behavior in his artwork. It is a common technology in screensavers as well as in animation (wikipedia).
For my project I wanted to explore emergent behavior in a 2-D medium, and with my own methods of pattern making. I created a template of a bird, and wrote my own "rules" that I would follow as I created the pattern. I based these rules of the original ones, changing them a little to suit a 2-D purpose. I understood that they must not be to concrete or it would create a static pattern that was predictable. They had to be somewhat vague so that the results would be unpredictable.
My rules were:
Separation: avoid overlapping and every bird must be touching at least one other bird
Alignment: steer towards average heading of others (unchanged)
Cohesion: every other placement you must flip the template
The pattern is in close resemblance to my other work but with a less organized look about it. Everything is a bit more organic but the birds are still tightly packed together. I realized that as an artist I like the play between the positive and negative shapes. I unconsciously put them close together because it pleased me.
Because the rules are 'vague' another artist may interpret them completely differently. Someone may like space between the birds and try to keep them as far away from each other but still keep within the rules. It occurred to me, that when a person is creating a pattern from rules such as these, his or her own personal aesthetic is added as well. A whole classroom of children may be presented with the same rules, and come out with completely different projects.
A computer may be able to randomize a pattern every time, but as humans we add something of our own to the pattern to make it unique to us.
