I was particularly interested in Vivien's exploration of the breath concept in the context of artificial creatures. In this blog post, I elaborate on the aspects that I found captivating concerning this concept and provide a variety of visual examples that could serve as inspiration in the process of implementation.
Breath is a fundamental rhythm of brain function that we all share. It is a means for existing, as well as for achieving focus, relaxation, and flow of movement. Our breath is tightly connected to our mental and physical state. For this reason, I found this vital process an interesting quality to be explored in the context of artificial creatures. I particularly liked Vivien's focus on different types of breathing that can bring to light different types of behavior such as sighing, moaning, coughing, sneezing, panting, laughing, and soothing. Two important aspects that caught my attention were the concepts of synchronicity and intimacy. It is known that when two people share a personal experience, they unconsciously synchronize bodily functions such as heartbeat and breath. This synchronicity can serve as an indicator of intimacy which would be interesting to explore in the context of artificial creatures by unraveling these as sentient beings.
When exploring breathing creatures, I am particularly interested in digital creatures that take the form of organisms or cells, exhibiting various behaviors that make them alive.
I present below a few examples of digital compositions that show liveness and elaborate on a few techniques that can be used when developing breathing artificial creatures.
Reaction-Diffusion systems represent mathematical models that correspond to physical phenomena, while studying biological phenomena.
One of the most common model is the change in space and time of the concentration of chemical substances:
chemical reactions where substances are transformed into each other;
diffusion which causes substances to spread out over a surface.
Noise in computer graphics can be used to generate random and unstructured patterns with a focus on extensive detail. Noise is often used in simulations and could be used in the context of a large number of digital organisms exhibiting chaotic behavior.
Feedback Loops can be used to create simulations textures similar to Reaction Diffusion and Voronoi.
Particle Systems represent groups of objects in space that are guided by a collection of rules, according to which they exhibit a certain behavior and appearance. Particle Systems can be used when developing artificial breathing creatures that are part of a collecting, or "herd", or culture.
For future work, it would be interesting to explore particle systems of breathing creatures that exhibit initially a chaotic behavior or breathing patterns through noise, and that change their behavior over time based on the connections between them, as well as based on the participant input. It would be interesting to implement the concept of synchronicity further, between digital organisms, but also between the participant and these organisms. For interaction, the breath of the participant and the organisms could synchronize based on certain factors, creating an atmosphere of intimacy between all parties involved.