Genetic algorithm
Alasdair Turner
Lecturer in Urban and Architectural Computing, University College London
View code: Evolutionary algorithm / Genotype / Phenotype Individual / Population
This manner of unfolding is an elastic, energetic oscillation between information and image. In a vigorous play at enfolding and unfolding, as information unfolds into image, and image enfolds back into information. It’s as though a magnetic force draws out the infinite and an equally powerful force resists unfolding. In terms that are especially important in Shi‘a and Sufi thought, the elastic manner of unfolding expresses how zâhir, or manifest, unfolds from bâtin, or latent. In Islamic art we see it in inscriptions that oscillate in and out of figuration.
The algorithm attempts to maximise the square of the side lengths while minimising the volume of a box. Better solutions are at the top right. Click to restart.
Morphing: the changing of shapes, and of roles — the way an image might, by its contours, slip into being a letter or a word, and a word into an image. In Turner’s genetic algorithm, the morphing of shapes, seeking the flattest box with the longest sides, operates by the play between the unfolding of a new generation of shapes into image, and the enfolding of that generation back into the evolutionary process, navigating like a fish through many possible outcomes in the fitness landscape towards one defined by those initial parameters, drawing out white squares turning a blue background, their morphing complete (until the next click).
“Image unfolds from text across a membrane whose tensile strength indexes the strength of its resistance to unfolding, with a force that pulls the infinite into being. Force is the source of the affect that accompanies every movement of unfolding, or refusal to unfold.” (p. 241)
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