The Art of Artificial Evolution: A Handbook on Evolutionary Art and Music. Juan Romero and Penousal Machado (Eds.). (2007, Springer-Verlag.) $119.00 (hardback), 458 pages

Abstract

The Art of Artificial Evolution: A Handbook on Evolutionary Art and Music. Juan Romero and Penousal Machado (Eds.). (2007, Springer-Verlag.) $119.00 (hardback), 458 pages. Includes DVD. The full table of contents for both book and DVD is available at http://art-artificial-evolution.dei.uc.pt/ A growing number of artists, musicians, designers, and researchers employ evolutionary computation (EC) and biologically inspired computational techniques as tools in their creative practice or for research into aspects of human creativity. Interest and activity in what has come to be known as evolutionary music and art (EMA) has flourished in recent years, within both academic and artistic communities. This book presents an overview of the state of the art in EMA as it gains maturity as a research discipline and artistic practice. In the last decade a number of similar edited collections have been published with a focus on evolutionary design [3], music [1], or art [2]. Like those of previous collections, the majority of the 19 chapters included in this volume serve to illustrate the diverse ways in which various biologically inspired techniques have been applied in music, art, and design. However, this collection takes an important step further in that it also looks forward and considers the challenges that lie ahead for EMA as a research discipline and artistic practice in its own right. The principle value of this book, then, is that it distills the diversity of applications, techniques, and theories into a single representative volume of this nascent field of research and practice, in addition to providing a state-of-the-art survey of activity in the field. The book attempts to present a broad coverage of topics, with the intention of providing sufficient background for newcomers as well as highlighting hot topics of research and specific challenges, both technically and theoretically. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the area, this is no mean feat, and taken as a whole, the collection succeeds. Each author takes care to contextualize their particular research: Chapters typically open with a conceptual and technical introduction to the biological mechanism or technique used and then provide an illuminating overview of the current state of their particular area of application before giving a thorough description of their design and implementation process. A wide selection of topics in music, art, design, and computational creativity are included. These range from sound design and artificial musical improvisers to the reproduction of master painters and the evolution of faces for criminal identification. Design applications include evolutionary architectural packages and image filters. Modeling projects in musical expression and computational aesthetics are also included. These focused projects are framed by an introduction that gives a broad overview of evolutionary art, and a selection of critical, motivational, and challenging overviews toward the end of the book. Contributions are divided into five sections: ‘‘Evolutionary Art,’’ ‘‘Evolutionary Music,’’ ‘‘Real-world Applications,’’ ‘‘Artistic Perspectives,’’ and ‘‘Future Perspectives.’’ The distribution of some chapters among these sections seems a little arbitrary: It is not clear why the ant art of Monmarche et al. is any more ‘‘artistic’’ than the swarm art of Christian Jacob, or why the evolved Escher-like pictures of Eiben are any more ‘‘real world’’ than Tim Blackwell’s swarm music. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the book provides a suitably diverse collection. Indeed, credit must go to the editors for selecting such a range of application areas, perspectives, and personalities that is representative of the field.