GRACEFUL BOLDNESS
16.5" x 37.5" 49 brushstrokes 2006
Complex Adaptive Systems, Subsumptive Architecture and Franz Kline
This painting is painted in the manner of Franz Kline, a member of the New York School after World War II. Kirby wanted to explore the essential qualities of Kline's work: simplicity, directness, and intellectual and emotional force.
After the tadpole painting, Graceful Boldness is indeed simple, direct, and forceful.
The software was written in the manner of Rodney Brooks' subsumptive architecture, a structure for behavior based robotics and real time Artificial Intelligence (AI). Subsumptive architecture employs a hierarchical layering scheme for orchestrating behaviors of agents - the now familiar ants. One can never account for all behavior, so Kirby was interested in teaching the lowest common denominators and working up from there to create a complex system.
The merging of these two concepts, Arnheim's and Brooks', produced this design of hubs, centric and eccentric energy. The subsumptive software architecture was very effective at creating intriguing, new designs with each click of the "run" button.
In the process of creating the painting, a new brushstroke was added to Dulcinea's repertoire, called the "kline" stroke to provide the abstract look you see here. Kline's strokes were clean, strong, thick and forceful. He loaded them with paint. Kirby adapted Dulcinea's programming to create this very distinctive look.
