Ecosystemic methods for creative domains: Niche construction and boundary formation

Abstract

Abstract-This paper examines how models from ecology and evolutionary multi-agent systems can be used for creative applications. We outline a minimal, general specification for an ecosystem to be applied to the production of creative artefacts, based on spaces, materials, features and actions. Using this specification, we consider how basic evolutionary principles based on niche construction can be used to establish the emergence of heterogeneous structures in the simplest imaginable cases to which our framework applies. We investigate the minimal conditions for the formation and maintenance of boundaries, and then apply the results of our initial models to the design of a creative artwork, contrasting differences between nicheconstructing and neutral evolutionary models.

Niche construction theory as an explanatory framework for human phenomena

“…Phrases like: (italics mine) "... cultural niche constructing behavior affects the amount of a resource R in the environment….Genotypes at locus A have finesses that are functions of the frequency with which the resource R is encountered by organisms.." (Laland et al 2001); "Positive niche construction refers to phenotypic activities that increase the presence of a valuable resource ...negative niche construction is the result of severe depletion of resources…" (Lehmann 2007), and "Niche-constructing traits can drive themselves to fixation by generating statistical associations between niche-constructing alleles and those whose fitness depends on resources modified by niche construction" (O'Brien and Lalalnd 2012) abound in NCT literature and characterize most NCT-inspired models (e.g., Laland et al (2001); Bown et al (2011)) and explanatory scenarios including, as we have just seen, those offered for human cultural niches. The crucial concept of "resource" is left undefined, but the citations above imply that it refers to a quantifiable material substance, its quantity being dependent upon niche constructors' activity and influencing their polymorphism.…”

“…I think that these observations are pertinent, but I wish to point out yet another characteristic common to both cases: that of being mediated through a physical, clearly identifiable and, at least in principle, quantifiable entity: consumed milk in the first case, and standing water in the second. In mathematical models that seek to describe cultural niche construction processes (Laland et al 2001;Bown et al 2011;Rendel et al 2011) such entities are referred to as a "resources", and the ability to causally point to such a "resource" as the element linking cultural activity to the genetic / environmental change is, I claim, what enables NCT to achieve a descriptive transparency-though not predictive or explanatory capacity-in these cases. Such situations are, however, atypical, as discussed later.…”

Metaflauta

“…De maneira similar às mudanças de paradigma que o uso de dispositivos de gravação, por exemplo, trouxeram à criação musical, reforçando um contexto do qual a sonoridade emerge como um aspecto central do discurso musical, o uso de interfaces digitais musicais tem potencializado novos campos de ação criativa, não orientados à determinação das estruturas da obra em si, mas à criação de condições ambientais favoráveis ao surgimento de estruturas como um aspecto emergente da própria interação entre as partes do sistema. Tratamos de como a ideia de emergência se interpõe em diferentes abordagens no campo da criação com suporte computacional, dando especial ênfase aos modelos ecossistêmicos (BOWN; MCCORMACK; KOWALIW, 2011;DORIN, 2004).…”