Octofungi completed

Octofungi Spine

Octofungi shoulder

Notes on Yves Amu Klein

-demonstrates idea of embodiment; regarding the "dirty" world and all its randomness and noise as essential to a systems growth rather than as a nuisance

-questions the line between object and being; what it means to be alive

-aims unambiguously for living autonomy

-coined term "Living Sculpture" attempting to bring emotional intelligence to sculpture

-Idea of symbiotic sculpture, taking two species that would ordinarily kill each other and turning them into cooperative sculpture systems

-Idea of eating, digesting and self-reproducing sculpture; artificial robotic cells; true artificial life

Octofungi eyes, top view

Octofungi
-8 legs, 30cm tall, molded polyurethane
-uses shape memory alloy (muscle wire) to actuate legs
-8 light sensors connect as eyes to a dual PIC processor neural network
-2 other PIC processors handle physical actuation
-neural net learns to be still when nothing is happening in the environment, to approach or recoil from other changes
-next version will have more complex recognition, able to recognize sequences of movements in the environment and respond with sequences
-Strong emphasis on the design of the art object, no use of found objects, strives for elegance

Mold for Octofungi polyurethane cast

Gene Genie

-Used for making Octofungi's brain
-software for breeding neural network brains for "intersting behavior"
-incorporates the computer equivalent of time-dependent hormonal flows, hyper-dimensional neural geometry, electrical neural 'noise,' and both DNA and reproductive structuring based on biological models
-combination of neural networks and time-dependent hormonal flow can potentially create brains that are much more flexible and 'fuzzy' than conventional neural networks, simulating emotional changes

Links

-Yves website
-Yves article on himself
-Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life; book where I first learned about Yves work