Mixed Media in Evolutionary Art

by Jordan Maslen
Supervisor: Brian Ross

"Sunset" by J. Maslen.

Mixed media in the real world involves the creation of works of art that creatively combine a variety of media on the canvas, for example, watercolour, acrylic paint, and photographs. We present an evolutionary art system that implements a digital version of mixed media. A genetic programming system uses a language that renders different digital effects on a canvas. Each rendered effect takes the form of an ``art object'', and the tree defines a set of art objects that together comprise a final rendered image. Available effects include procedural images (textures), image filters, and bitmaps. An art object is rendered onto the canvas via a pre-defined mask shape, which can range from simple geometric shapes such as circles or squares, to complex paintbrush strokes and paint splatters. Fitness evaluation measures the pixel-by-pixel colour distance between a rendered canvas and an input target image, which acts as a compositional guide for rendered images. Various runs of the system have produced an interesting variety of stylized, mixed-effect results, often appearing as abstract ``glitchy'' interpretations of target images.

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Copyright (C) 2021 Jordan Maslen.


Back up: http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~bross/