Swarms of ants and birds set off to decode a complex painting by Willem De Kooning in their own swarmic way. The step-by-step behaviour of the swarms is detailed in.
This video displays consecutive cycles of the behaviour of the swarms. A cycle begins when swarms choose a line from the canvas on the right and produce their interpretation of that line on the canvas on the left . Once they have reproduced all the lines, they start a new cycle where they use the outline of what they have just created to generate a new interpretation of it.
Over time, the swarms eat away the lines, simplifying the structure of the original painting. This leads to a simpler line structure which ultimately results in an empty canvas.
This artwork originated from an exchange with Profs. William Latham, Frédéric Fol Leymarie and Mark Bishop.
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