[ISEA95] Artist Statement: Jeffrey Ventrella — Disney Meets Darwin: Evolving Expressive Motions

Artist Statement

In this session, I will present my work using artificial life techniques, emphasizing real-time, physically-based stick figurs whose anatomy and behavior can evolve. I have been using emergence in generating images and animations for many years. My work is an attempt to advance the art of artificial life – an art which can evolve potentially towards immense complexity and expressivity, which would be impossible using top-down design strategies. I have always used the computer as a medium for generating emergent artforms, from my early experiments with fractal and cellular automata, to later developments using evolutionary algorithms. I would like to step through my development as an artificial life artist, and to site the works of other artists and thinkers working in similar ways.

  • Jeffrey Ventrella is a recent graduate of the Media Lab. Jeffrey Ventrella is presently a software developer for Rocket Science Games Inc. He has taught artificial life graphics courses at Tufts University and the University of California in San Diego. He has held many positions in the fields of animation, graphic design and programming. He has presented papers internationally and has published several images and texts in magazines and journals, such as IRIS Universe, Artificial Life IV, and “Animato!”.