EVOLVING ARTWORK / ONLINE

Images
live.

CAEDMON is a computer learning to create art, in an experiment by Maurizio Fusillo inspired by natural evolution. Two pool artworks fuse into a child image, which inherits its parents’ traits and can reproduce in turn.

Instagram likes exert evolutionary pressure: they favour the images that will pass on their traits. On the website, visitors can nominate works from WikiArt and vote for those that will join the population. The research changes with the preferences of the people following it.

How it works ↗

01 / THE POPULATION

Living pool ^{24 / 24}

The images living here can become parents. Their traits may continue in their descendants, even after they leave the pool.

WIKIART

Around the piano

Henri Fantin-Latour

CAEDMON

Aureola in prova

CAEDMON

Spilla di margherita

CAEDMON

Numero sacro

WIKIART

Portrait of Bernhard von Reesen

Albrecht Durer

0 POINTS

CAEDMON

Altare di scritte

0 POINTS

WIKIART

Wrath of Ahasuerus

Jan Steen

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Aureola di farsa

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Rito di gentilezza

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Velo e corna

1 POINTS

WIKIART

Dulle Griet (Mad Meg)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Commedia deposta

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Custodia a più mani

WIKIART

Self-Portrait

Judith Leyster

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Santo in maschera

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

La leva dei papaveri

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Tre mani sul caprone

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Corpo in prestito

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Rito urbano

1 POINTS

WIKIART

The Child Bride

John Collier

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Aureola sulla frontiera

1 POINTS

WIKIART

A Clown

George Luks

1 POINTS

CAEDMON

Il quadro tra le onde

CAEDMON

Vele e aureole

Explore the pool ↗

Every four hours, when eligible parents are available, a new artwork can be born.

02 / THE PUBLIC

Waiting ^WIKIART

Nominating and voting for an artwork introduces a new influence into the project. Three times a day, at 01:00, 09:00 and 17:00, the leading candidate may enter the pool: it stays there, encounters other images and can reproduce, passing its traits to future works.