Talk by Rob Saunders 7.30 pm at the Lighthouse Media Centre, Brighton followed by work in progress by Ian Helliwell and Sam Woolf at Sumo Bar, Brighton.

Rob studied with John Gero at the University of Sydney and in his talk he gave an overview of his doctoral research: Curious Design Agents and Artificial Creativity. Rob's thesis can be downloaded from this site, which is well worth visiting (look for the Java applets he's written). Here is the abstract of his talk:

Creative products are generally recognised as satisfying two requirements: firstly they are useful, and secondly they are novel. Much effort in AI and design computing has been put into developing systems that can recognise the usefulness of the products that they generate.

In contrast, the work presented here has concentrated on developing systems that are able to recognise the novelty of their work, by developing a model of curiosity in art and design.

Some applications of the work will be discussed, including the commercial application of an artificial creativity system for the development of a company's logo.

After the talk, there were two works in progress downstairs at the Sumo bar:

Sam Woolf showed some short films made with his generative film-making software, the GooglePoweredGoggleBox, which you can read a review of here. You can play with an online version of this software, Visual Tangents.

Artist Ian Helliwell makes experimental music, super-8 films, installations, electronic instruments and light-show projections for concerts and club nights. He brought along some of his magnificent, mutated-machines: hybrid mixes of old oscilloscopes, toys and sound-to-light circuits. Alice Eldridge describes Ian's work as "Ross Ashby meets Terry Gilliam".