Swarms

“Swarm Intelligence describes the high-level behavior produced by the interaction of several decentralized non-hierarchical non-complex units of low-level intelligence with short-term local interaction". The traditional examples for describing swarm systems are insect colonies, flocks, and fish schools which overall behavior is more sophisticated than each of the members isolated.

Following this paradigm, this project models a swarm system employing a collection of electronic circuits called Superbirds. The Superbirds were designed and developed at the University of Washington by Bruce Hemingway and his team. Since their creation they have been used in several courses as a mean for teaching computer embedded systems and also as a devices for artistic projects. Their set of capabilities such as audio synthesis, color screen, and radio communication makes them a suitable technology for exploring audiovisual interactive experiences.

For this project, these electronic devices are emulating organic creatures that communicate via radio establishing a virtual network along the gallery. All the creatures are programmed with the same set of routines but their sonic and visual behavior at a given time depends of the interaction between their closest neighbors. In a similar way than organic creatures, these digital agents transit between different states such as sound and visual gestures production, listening and copying other’s materials, sleeping, and confronting other agents.

Bruce Heminway, Brian Mayton, Hugo Solis and students of the course Software for Embedded Systems at University of Washington have developed this work over the last years.