Metamorfosis neural

Neural metamorphosis arises from a process of testing and exploration that sought to provoke a visual effect capable of momentarily decentering the viewer from their daily lives. The intention was to generate a brief but immersive experience, where attention is captured by a visual ecosystem in constant transformation. This perceptual micro-situation is built from the interaction between a machine, a set of algorithms, a subject that mediates (or facilitates) the experience, and other subjects that co-inhabit it and provide feedback on its meaning, its effects and its meanings.

The image should not be understood as a “final result”—a term that, in Brean terms, is rather worthy of doubt—but as an active state within an infinite sequence of variations. Its origin was an idea that tried to evoke a neural network: nodes that activate and rest cyclically, responding to external or internal stimuli. Although at the beginning an anatomical approximation of this idea was sought, the natural course of the technical process imposed its own evolution and forced the original objectives to be made more flexible, giving way to spontaneity. The piece, therefore, is constituted as an image in transit, always susceptible to change.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

In parallel to the production process, research on pioneers of generative art—Vera Molnar, Charles Csuri, Lillian Schwartz, Jared Tarbell—influenced the development of the work due to the ways these artists approached and encouraged convergence between two fields apparently as dissimilar as art and technology. Beyond conceiving the computer as a mere tool, these artists set out to develop a collaboration with the machine, elevating it to a kind of co-creative subject of their practice. As Csuri states: “I exploit the capabilities of the computer and do not limit myself to simply trying to predefine what I want to do.” And Tarbell, in the same vein: “I usually start my sketches without a goal in mind. I’m simply exploring the space of what is possible.” From this approach, the evolution of the work was experienced as a game of curiosity and transformation, where each alteration or unforeseen event was an invitation to continue exploring.

The image resulting from this process is made up of different elements that interact cyclically. A central figure—constant in its metamorphosis—rotates on itself, progressively mutating over the course of time. Around it, a cluster of nodes initially emerges grouped together, as a dense unit, and then spreads outwards, crossing the limits of the underlying figure. A number of connections emerge at this point—irregular lines that simulate synapses—and after a few seconds they dissolve, while the nodes return to their initial state of concentration and rest. The entire ecosystem flows in a continuous and infinite dance of expansion and contraction.

The use of chance and randomness in Neural Metamorphosis enables an intentional balance between order and disorder, a characteristic of generative art and what Philip Galanter defines as “organized complexity.” Although the visual cycles are perceptibly repetitive, no scene is exactly the same as the previous one: each moment functions as a unique piece within a distinguishable pattern.

To conclude, this piece is not finished nor does it pretend to be. Its source code, open and replicable, inhabits the public network for the circulation of ideas. What is presented is just an instance, a part of a potentially infinite flow of appropriation, alteration and re-adaptation to the taste of the subjects of experience who wish to continue feeding it. In the words of Brea: “Not only that much of the energy resulting from any artistic practice does not need to be culminated or concretized in any single object. But, and not even anymore, in any multiplied object.”

Literature

• Brea, José Luis. Redefinición de las prácticas artísticas en el s. XXI. (2008).
• Galanter, Philip. Entre dos fuegos: el arte-ciencia y la guerra entre ciencia y humanidades. (2011).
• Tarbell, Jared. Noise Circle, Infinite Center. (2015). https://www.infinite.center/2015/08/01/noisecircle/
• Csuri, Charles. 3D Animations, Charles Csuri Official Website.