Celaeno, Electra, Merope Roman Verostko

For over 40 years Roman has painted pure visual forms ranging from controlled constructions with highly studied colour behaviour to spontaneous brush strokes and automatic drawing. Such art has been labelled variously as 'concrete', 'abstract', 'non-objective' and 'non-representational'. In its purest form such art does not re-present other reality. Rather 'it is' the reality. One contemplates a pure form similar to the way one might contemplate a fine vase or a seashell. Radically new procedures for creating such art emerged in the last quarter of the Twentieth Century. With the advent of computers Roman began composing original detailed instructions for generating forms that are are accessible only through extensive computing.

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Chromos, Where's the Red Wedge Paul Brown

Paul Brown is an artist and writer who has been specialising in art and technology for over 30 years. His computer generated artwork has been exhibited internationally since 1967 and is currently on show in Europe, the USA and Australia. During 2000/2001 he was a New Media Arts Fellow of the Australia Council and he spent 2000 as artist-in-residence at the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at the University of Sussex. He is currently (2002 - 2005) a Visiting Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London where he is working on their CACHe project (Computer Arts, Contexts, Histories, etc).

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Dubiofossil Sarah Angliss

Relax in the comfy chair as you participate in these two sonic experiments. The first, Dead Music, uses recordings of generative music played on a hurdy-gurdy. This ancient instrument sounds mesmerising, despite its technical limitations. I hope it makes an interesting antidote to purely electronic, generative sound. The second, Wordsmith, is an evolving wordpiece about evolution. Sarah Angliss is a composer and engineer, recently awarded a NESTA Dreamtime Fellowship to explore new ways to deploy sound in public spaces. Thanks to researchers Chrisantha Fernando and Laura Wright and hurdy-gurdyists Maxine Sweatman and Nigel Eaton for their help with this exhibit.

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Evolving Drawing Theresa Gartland-Jones

Theresa's reason for exploring computing processes for the creation of art work stems from the desire to produce dynamic connections between visual metaphors that blend ideas in an organic process. This involves transference of the acquired knowledge and conceptual aims of a traditional fine art practice (painting and drawing) into an artificial, digital environment. Once in this environment a new layer of idiosyncratic computer generated processes begins to extend the possibilities of creating new line behaviours, evolving forms and blending meaning. She shares with Harold Cohen an interest in the boundaries between lines having meaning or not.

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Guess Anna Dumitriu

Using a specially built card loom, Anna wove the 16 bit binary machine code for the process of Iteration, the means by which a computer attempts to ascertain a correct answer to an equation by guessing. The way in which this program works can be seen as a metaphor for how a work of art is created. The historical links between the traditionally feminine art form of weaving and the development of computer science can be traced back to the Jacquard loom, the first programmed machine, which was instrumental in bringing about the industrial revolution.

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Frankendael, Ima Traveller, Tuboid Maria Verstappen and Erwin Driessens

Aesthetic experiences are often caused by natural phenomena. This is due to nature's emergent properties that enable her to trigger our imagination in a positive way. Emergence is an intrinsic property of nature's dynamic forces: complex matter-energy flows are capable of spontaneously generating order out of chaos. Chaotic transformations are the only possible mechanism to generate something new. The aesthetic experience is also the creation of something new. It is a process in which suddenly something unexpected becomes sensible: the so called Aha-experience. So, if we want to be able to stimulate new experiences by means of artifacts, we have to be sure that they contain unpredictable or spontaneous features. But when we examine the products of human artists, they often lack these properties. The pragmatic and associative tendencies of the human mind often disturb the unfolding of spontaneous, original and new possibilities. It is a difficult, but at the same time exiting challenge, to aim for an art that systematically arouses emergent phenomena. This means that we have to find ways of expressing aesthetic ideas outside ourselves. Erwin and Maria are exhibiting three of their works at the Big Blip 04: Frankendael, a movie showing the transformation of a landscape park in Amsterdam through the seasons.; Ima Traveller, an interactive installation that enables you to make a journey into an infinite space that is created in real time; and Tuboid, evolutionary computer software that generates an endless mutating tubular structure.

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Interactive Xlab Antony Ribot

Xlab is a visual application oriented towards educating and entertaining those interested in the concepts of artificial life. The package provides a progressive environment by which users can develop their knowledge through interacting with simulations and games. Using OpenGL and Java technology a series of alife concepts are covered, including Braitenberg's vehicles, cellular automata, genetic algorithms and pheromone-based ant foraging techniques.

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Interactive skipping Interact Lab

The Interact lab is a research centre based at the University of Sussex, concerned with possible interactions between people, technologies and representations. Its focus is on developing novel user experiences in a variety of settings including the home, school, public spaces and work. The researchers are particularly interested in exploring the use of combined physical / digital environments for extending current forms of interaction, play and learning, and it is with this in mind that they have developed an interactive skipping rope. Children are invited to pre-adjust the difficulty of a skipping task and to determine the displayed output of their skipping. A child can define their own set of parameters with which to measure their performance, for example, the speed of the skipping rope, the number of skips, or the force of their jumps. The chosen parameters are represented by a token made out of wood with an embedded RFID tag placed inside. This token is a visualisation of the skipping task and is represented by a particular body part: either the legs, the body or the head. Each body part can be dressed in three different ways (as a ballerina, a weightlifter or a policeman), each of which is predefined to represent a different level of difficulty. The children skip to match their configured composite person. The output of each of their skipping dimensions is visually represented once the level of difficulty has been achieved by skipping on a pressure-sensitive pad. Either the visual composite of the configured legs, body and head is projected alongside the child skipping or the child's image can be merged into the configured composite image.

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Markov15 Micheál O'Connell (Mock Sim)

Mock Sim is experienced in the arena of mathematical modelling and computer simulation. He also paints (with paint) and is pursuing an MA in Fine Art to resolve a dilemma between real and virtual. Recent work was based on the application of Markov Chain mathematics. Main sources of inspiration are simple dynamics: swings, trains decelerating, vessels emptying, molecular diffusion, rhythm...

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Meniscus Alan Dorin

Meniscus is a population of (virtual (*doh*)) micro-organisms which evolve over time according to the adjustments visitors make to the water level in their tank.

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Mimetic starfish Richard Brown

Richard Brown has a hybrid background in computers and cybernetics and an MA in Fine Art. He is currently a NESTA Research Fellow (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts). He combines ideas from alchemy, science and technology to produce interactive installations using a wide variety of media - high voltage electricity, mould, computers, software, electronics, projections, metals, glass and liquids. Ideas about time, space, energy, mimetics and perception are central in his practice. He employs technology to create magical and transformative experiences. The Mimetic Starfish was described as "The best bit in the entire Dome" by The Times.

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Open Decks Jon Bird and Andy Webster

In this project Andy & Jon reconstruct their idea of a bad night out: the wedding reception disco. The best man has already run off with the bride, the groom has run off with the mother-in-law, and the father-in-law has run off with the vicar. The dog has been eaten by the buffet and the marquee has been infested with oversize hornets. Moved indoors to the safety of the bar, the reception continues but with a spin, as the audience are invited to participate by playing their three favourite tracks and to dance madly with the drunken uncle. Their selections drive the light show to create what they like to describe as 'the bastard offspring of a Dan Flavin.' Bring your own bottle and your top three CDs for DJs Spinny and Suzannah.

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Pendulodic Caia, Benedict Sheehan and Ollie Glass

A collaboration between a visual artist, a creative technologist and a sonic artist, Pendulodic is an interactive soundscape installation using a pendulum as an instrument. A pendulum swings over a sculptured beach. Stones on the beach trigger envelops of sound whilst the rhythm of the pendulum controls the beat. The audience can swing the pendulum to create their own composition in the soundscape.

Benedict Sheehan explores the fuzzy area where technology can be subverted into creative use. He brings together technologies to provoke thought and challenge preconceptions and also to have some fun! He was rained in traditional animation and also has a background in innovative software development for both the medical and entertainment industries. Benedict has had a large number of collaborative installations exhibited in the UK and internationally, including works at the ICA gallery, the Victoria and Albert museum, the OXO tower, the British Council in Mexico, the KunstlerHaus Vienna, and SFSAD San Francisco.

Caia is a self-taught artist who has been working professionally for over 10 years. Educated in Johannesburg, Tokyo and London she draws inspiration from these diverse cultures and specifically from the beauty of imperfection. Caia has exhibited widely in London including the Royal College of Art and the Hackney Coliseum. She is currently exhibiting at the ArtAtFive gallery where she won the ArtAtFive Artist prize, and she was also short listed for the Brighton Festival Arts Prize.

Ollie Glass is a sonic artist influenced by ideas from artificial intelligence and philosophy and who approaches music as a psychological space using ecological composition techniques. He developed and exhibited the 'Beats By Design' intelligent drum machine at Big Blip 03. Performing live psychedelic break beat funk as Blackholeprojector, he has played festivals and club nights in Bath, Brighton and London. Ollie's currently producing an interactive visual and sonic environment that responds to data obtained from physiological and location monitoring devices, and promoting and exploring holistic forms of audience participation.

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Signal from the Noise Heather Barnett and Alice Eldridge

Heather is a visual artist who has worked collaboratively with scientists over the past eight years, in areas of medicine, botany and geology. Her work incorporates photography, film, digital media and installation, often actively in tandem with scientific processes. Her working methods are highly responsive to her environment, reflecting observations and reactions to working in a scientific context. Heather is working with research groups in the School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, exploring the place of design and transformation in biological systems. Her current project, Metamorphosis & Design, is a collaboration with geneticist Robert Whittle.

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Stigmergy, Cat Mike Blow

Mike is interested in the strange no-man's land in between art and science, where complexity, chaos and order can surprise us with new and exciting forms. Favourite themes include finding order buried in a beautiful mess and the exploration of hidden spaces. Stigmergy is a robot installation, inspired by ant foraging, which uses glowing trails on an arena floor. Patterns emerge from the local actions and interactions of 3 robots communicating by changing their environment. Stigmergy reveals that which is usually hidden in the natural world and hides that which is usually obvious. Cat is an evolutionary art program enabling the exploration of a 60's abstract style aesthetic. Cat was written as an art piece but was used in an experimental attempt to discern a common aesthetic preference in a group of subjects.

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There does not, in fact, appear to be a plan Bill Bigge, Mike Blow, Ed Clive, Rowena Easton, Garvin Haslett and John Popadic.

The forms created by There does not, in fact, appear to be a plan are the consequence of its construction, the interaction of the audience and simple homogeneous agents acting upon static objects. This installation challenges the audience's ability to locate the creative act by creating a layer of disassociation between the artists and the resulting structures. In attempting to demythologise the artistic impulse a dynamic wholeness is suggested. At the Big Blip 04 the project was displayed as an installation and a monitor-based film. This project was supported by: Jon Bird; Richard Brown; Sue Gollifer; Tom Grimsey; Phil Husbands; and Andy Webster.

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Tiles, Chinese Whispers Rachel Cohen

The work shown is part of a project entitled Chinese Whispers in which the process of drawing is used as an analogy for evolution. In this case, starting with a section from a Japanese textile pattern, the artist invited people to copy the drawing, each one from the previous copy so that the image changes incrementally. Tiles was made from 26 of these drawings in 4 separate chains. Rachel Cohen will be collecting more drawings for the Chinese whisper project during her Big Blip workshop. If you are interested in a similar drawing workshop at your place of work or study please email Rachel.

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Top Marks Emma Churchill

Emma lives and works on The Lizard in Cornwall. She graduated in Fine Art at Falmouth College of Arts in 2001. She is a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists and the Royal British Society of Sculptors. She exhibits at both local and national level and her practice includes public events and educational work. Last year her drawing 'Sweeping Statement' won several major awards, including the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation award for drawing, the Royal West of England Academy Open Sculpture Competition (first prize), and the RBS bursary award. The success of her artwork rests on the belief that drawing is as much about process as result. Much of her artwork involves the adaptation of toys and games to draw. The shift of emphasis from drawing to games encourages participation by people of all ages and drawing ability. Her bowling pencil installation 'Bowled Over' was installed in the National Gallery for the 'Campaign for Drawing' awards ceremony, and is featured on the front page of this year's promotional leaflet. It will also be part of this years Big Draw launch in Trafalgar Square in September. Her radio-controlled drawing cars appeared on Blue Peter last year. This installation offers an opportunity to contribute to a large-scale drawing while playing with spinning tops that weave spirals of graphite. All marks made, including a wide variety of human traces, add to the quality of the work.

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Turbulence Jon McCormack

Jon McCormack is an Australian artist and researcher in artificial life and generative systems. He has worked in a variety of media including interactive installation, stereoscopic HDTV, and virtual reality. His critically acclaimed work, Turbulence, has been called a defining work in electronic media art and received a number of international awards from Austria, Canada, the USA and Japan. It offers a different perspective on nature and our relationship to it. In many ways the work is a type of futuristic natural history museum made visible through the synergetic combination of mind and machine; a document of a type of life that exists only within the abstract 'pluriverse' of computational space: a place that never was, in a time that has never been.

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Urinal bag Ryuichi Nambu

Why do we need the bag? What we actually see is not a urinal itself but the conception we are carrying about it. The Fountains in galleries have been losing urinal characteristics because they are already pieces of great art. As they gain the name of art, they lose their artistic importance. It is because the first urinal was not presented in these terms that it could be accepted as a piece of art. It is an 'on-off' switch: when one is on, the other is off and vice versa. If it makes sense for people as a piece of artwork, it is no longer 'the' artwork as initially intended. If it does not make sense, it is deprived of any opportunity to be recognized as 'a' piece of art.

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Water series Mateo Willis

In his art Mateo explores generative processes to reveal emerging patterns of complexity over time and space. Whether it is chaotic swirls of water or streams of people in a crowded city, the interaction of apparently random multiple agents generate surprising similar patterns. Both produce a comparable aesthetic, the sense of organic creation which assumes a natural balance and infinite sense of depth.

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4³ Ever Garvin Haslett

4³ Ever is a sculpture focussing on the possible combinations of nucleotides within a DNA strand. Nucleotides can exist in any one of four states and a genetic word consists of three nucleotides. This implies that there are 4³ = 64 such words. An artificial evolutionary algorithm was used to search possible sequences of nucleotides until one was found that contained all of the words when arranged in a continuous loop. A scheme mapping four colours to the nucleotides has been devised. A series of armatures forming the sequence have been placed along a body. The body is in the shape of an infinity symbol and the arrangement of the armatures alludes to canonical representations of the double helix. Garvin Haslett is a computer scientist who draws inspiration for his practice from biological systems.

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800,000 Kosovan refugees Hans Dehlinger

The tree as a metaphor and as an element of lanscapes is a familiar image and a poetic reminder to enjoy life. What Hans tries to communicate through his work are interpretations of the mysteries and tragedies that surround us. Computer generated artwork, based on line-drawings, is challenging for a number of reasons. It makes use of lines as the characteristic element of the generative process, and the results rely entirely on the callagraphic qualities of these lines. Besides the heritage of hand drawings, which we conceive as a fantastically rich universe, we may conceive an equally fantastic universe of machine drawings.