Genetic Design

One of our readings this week dealt with the hereditary possibilities of artistic talent. This is an uncertain topic, but some artists are certainly fascinated with genetics! I ran into these designs written by Ludvine Lechat for the program NodeBox, which is a python based graphics experimentation environment:

This project, actually a postgraduate program at Transmedia called 'Graphic Cellular Domestication' generates images, (instead of canvases, Lechat calls them 'tissues') which are compositions of heirarchies of 'cell' graphics, based on some basic genetic flavored algorithms.
But these images, based on Lechat's work, are more interesting to me. Maybe us:

Since NodeBox also has animation/interactivity capabilities, The author of the 'Evolution' library has extended graphic cellular domestication to include graphic evolution, genetic recombination, and natural (or mathematical) selection. I like this guy:

You can watch movies of this in action by following the link:

Creatures pit their strengths against each other in the arena. Here, they get to fly around, flock together, hunt down enemies, struggle for survival. In the example below, the Docole is pitted against three of the Timude species, which is kind of a long and boring match because the predator is way to dumb to catch any of Timude, and the Timude are way to weak to fight the Docole. What you get is a lot of running around in circles.

There are a number of other genetically (or more or less, survival of the fittest) inclined, wonderful games available. For example, if you have a PC, a maternal drive, and an interest in genetic experiments, i suggest checking out Creatures 1 or 2.
In these games you bred and spliced creatures, and could (using the 'genetics kit') create and edit your own genomes, and then watch them in action. Because they evolved, large communities formed around them, exchanging genomes, duplicating/distributing ideal 'types' and writing more nutritious versions of the fruits and vegetables in the world. Which also reproduced, but i'm not sure how much evolution went on in the agricultural side of the game...
Another game that mac users are anticipating the release of is: SPORE by Maxis, the same company which developed Sim City and 'the sims'.