Abstract

The basic idea forwarded is to view aesthetic decision making as a distributed process where a society of simple agents are engaged in local interaction and in global interaction with the outside world. The approach is inspired by recent work in biochemistry, pattern formation in biological work spaces, the study of non-linear systems, fluid dynamics and the cognitive theory suggested in Minsky (1986). Nature itself provides many examples where interesting and coherent overall behaviour results from surprisingly simple, local rules. The observation of this pattern-making potential looks promising in a wish to escape mechanistic performance often prevalent in a rulebased approach to algorithmic composition.

• Peter Beyls (Belgium)