Ecosystem Dynamics for Creative Image Generation

Artists are constantly exploring new methods which innovate or enhance the esthetic value of their works. Over the last few years, there has been a growing interest in applying the swarm paradigm to generative art, i.e. in designing decentralized systems where mobile agents collaborate on the creation of an emerging piece. In this context, the present paper discusses the artistic potential of a generative ecosystem featuring resource chasing and consumption. We argue that the introduction of an energy budget to the agent model not only allows the user to partially control the creation process, but also to enrich the overall visual experience, by mapping the energy level of the agents to artistic dimensions such as line width or color.