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Presenters: Elio Caccavale Dawn Danby Olaf Dreyer Juan Geuer Rob Godman John Hatch Kenneth A. Huff Mantissa Miroslav Lovric Sally McKay Eric Raymond S. David Rosner Mariano Sardón Frederic P. Schuller Krister Shalm Lydia Sharman & Stephen Morris Donald Spector Joseph Thywissen Marion Tränkle Koala Yip |
Symposium LifeCycles by Mantissa http://www.mantissa.ca/ During intermissions in the symposium we will be projecting this video installation. Based upon the natural evolutionary patterns of population systems, LifeCycles is an autonomous and evolving video installation that creates abstract digital paintings in real-time. LifeCycles uses a collection of life-imitating computer algorithms to visualize the behaviours of a single population, which is guided by a set of rules, emphasizing various changes and trends (including size, growth, stability, and death). These factors stimulate the movement of virtual paintbrushes, sending flowing forms of bright colour across a screen-based canvas. LifeCycles operates using customized software whose core component is an engine for real-time decision - making based on cellular automata, modeling tools that simulate complexity in physical and biological systems. The collective behaviour of the automata impact a variety of creative decisions, such as where to paint on the digital canvas, what type of brush to use, and which colours to paint with. LifeCycles uses a more-widely known form of cellular automata called Conway's Game of Life, a self organizing system that simulates population growth in a fixed space. The size of population is determined by a simple set of rules for evolution: if neighboring units are lightly populated, it grows; if units are stably populated, the population remains the same; if overcrowding or sparse living occurs, it declines. 
The digital painting, the visual output of LifePaint, continuously morphs in real- time in an animated fashion: its abstract, bulbous forms slowly expand and contract, adding new coloured shapes to the canvas . Its style is reminiscent of the work of artists who use experimental techniques such as paint and wax dripping to create their works. The colours that LifeCycle uses may be either generated by the computer or pre-selected (by the artist) and then chosen by the computer. In this case, a completed work is never made; rather a work-in-progress that continuously changes it s form. The lack of a final product alters the emphasis from the completed work to the complex behaviours and evolving processes of the life-imitating painting system. Biography: 
Mantissa is the pseudonym of Toronto-based artist/programmer Jeremy
Rotsztain. In his concrete sound and video compositions, Jeremy
re-works his collection of found and synthetic materials using a
variety of computer algorithms so that they continue to evolve and
re-generate over time. His current field of interest lies in live
cinema: the exploration of live sound a video in a singular context.
In the last year, Jeremy performed in a number of streaming sound and video festivals, including Anyware and NoMusic. He has also collaborated with a number of theatre and dance companies to create media-based components for their productions. Jeremy has performed and exhibited his work in Berlin, Frankfurt, Toronto, Montreal and New York City. |
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