In my research I explore and evaluate concepts and methodologies from those sciences, which pursue a synthetic approach, with regard to their applicability to art and design. The synthetic principle of abstraction of natural processes and their reimplementation in an artifact is very common in art and steadily gains in importance in science. I'm particularly interested in the fuzzy boundary region between the scientific fields of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life and the artistic fields of interactive and generative art. Topics such as emergence, self-organization, complexity, autonomy, adaptivity and diversity are of general interest to art and science and form a potential basis for a mutual exchange. Complex and self-organized systems have a great appeal for art, since they possess the capability to continuously change, adapt and evolve. In addition, such systems tend to respond to user input in surprising and non-trivial ways and can therefore be very rewarding for users who engage inexploratory forms of interaction.

The following two topics currently constitute my main interest:

automated artificial aesthetics

In both living and non-living nature numerous pattern formation processes occur, whose results often possess astonishing levels of complexity and structural organization. In natural organisms, these processes result from a combination of physical laws, innate properties, adaption capabilities and environmental effects. Im interested in employing a similarly intricate network of mutual dependencies and capabilities for the development of automated media generation systems. This requires an abstraction and reconceptualization of the relationship of structure, behavior and appearance in biological systems into possible equivalents of aesthetic artifacts.

interactive and semi-interactive systems

The concept of a complete autonomous agent constitutes is of central importance to the field of embodied artificial intelligence. In order to fulfil the criteria of complete autonomy an agent needs to be self-sufficient, situated, embodied, adaptive, and autonomous. I'm particularly interested in how this concept could be applied to interactive installations. How do the roles of user and artefact change in case of autonomous systems. How to support intuitive forms of interaction with a system that can no longer be controlled. What sort of interfaces will be suitable to support these novel forms of interaction.