Guillaume Hutzler
:: The Garden of Chances ::
The Garden of Chances

The Garden of Chances
Plastic and sonorous numeric installation
© B. Gortais/Paris 6 University


:: Credits ::

  • Bernard Gortais (scenography, sonorous and plastic design)
  • Guillaume Hutzler (technical design and programming)
  • Xavier Verlut (programming)

:: Exhibitions ::

  • October 26th 1995: second price of the ARSLAB2 - In Corso Ars Technica / Ecosystèmes techno artistiques exhibition for the installation projects, Turin (Italy)
  • July 26th-August 6th 1997: Life Like Exhibition, Brighton Media Centre Gallery (England)
  • April 27th-October 31st 1999: Dessiner le monde, de l'aquarelle au pixel, exhibition co-produced by Institut Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Saline royale d'Arc et Senans (France)
  • December 21st 1999-May 2000: Cartographier le monde, de l'aquarelle au pixel, exhibition co-produced by Institut Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris (France)

:: Publications ::

In English

SCI01a Hutzler G., "Dynamic Construction of Visual Ecosystems to Interact with Complex Systems", in World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics 2001, (Florida, USA), N. Callaos, X. Zong, C. Vergez and J. R. Peleaz eds, Volume II, pp. 362-366, IIIS, Orlando, 2001.

Leonardo00 Hutzler G., Gortais B., Drogoul A., "The Garden of Chances: a Visual Ecosystem", in Leonardo, Vol. 33, Issue 2, pp. 101-106, April 2000, International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, MIT Press.

ICAI00 Renault V., Hutzler G., "Data Gardens: Agent Societies for the Visualization of Complex Systems", in IC-AI'2000, H.R. Arabnia ed., Las Vegas (Nevada, USA), pp. 167-173, CSREA Press, 2000.

ECAL97 Hutzler G., Gortais B., Drogoul A., "The Garden of Chances: an Integrated Approach to Abstract Painting and Reactive Distributed Artificial Intelligence", in 4th European Conference on Artificial Life, Brighton (England), P. Husbands and I. Harvey eds., pp. 566-573, MIT Press, 1997.

In French

These.pdf Hutzler G., "Du Jardin des Hasards aux Jardins de Données : une approche artistique et multi-agent des interfaces homme / systèmes complexes", Thèse de Doctorat, Université Pierre et Maris Curie - Paris 6, 14 janvier 2000.

ErgoIHM00 Hutzler G., Renault V., "Les Jardins de Données : des sociétés d'agents pour la visualisation de données complexes", in ERGO IHM 2000, D.L. Scapin et E. Vergisson éds. CRT ILS & ESTIA, pp. 94-101, 2000.

JFIAD98 Hutzler G., Gortais B., Renault V., "Point et ligne sur plan : des agents qui communiquent visuellement", in Journées Francophones d'Intelligence Artificielle Distribuée et Systèmes Multi-Agents, Pont-à-Mousson, J.P. Barthès, V. Chevrier et C. Brassac éds., pp. 191-204, Hermès, Paris, 1998.

JFIAD97 Hutzler G., Gortais B., Drogoul A., "Le Jardin Des Hasards: peinture abstraite et Intelligence Artificielle Distribuée réactive", in Journées Francophones d'Intelligence Artificielle Distribuée et Systèmes Multi-Agents, La Colle sur Loup, J.-P. Muller et J. Quinqueton éds., pp. 295-306, Hermès, Paris, 1997.

:: Presentation ::

A visual ecosystem

This project borrows from the preceding work What's the weather like in CapLan? the principle of visual and sonorous representation of the meteorological ambience of a distant place. This time however, the representation is designed as the metaphor of a garden, constitued of a set of graphical colored shapes that interact with one another. These shapes are designed after the metaphor of vegetals that develop in relationship with the meteorology of the distant place, but also in competition with one another, reproducing themselves and dying as any living being. By so doing, the aim is not to faithfully reproduce the real world, but rather to propose a metaphoric representation of a world that is peculiar to the artist, based on the use of meteorological data and processes borrowed from nature. Inspired by the approach of the first abstract painters, W. Kandinsky[1] and P. Klee[2] in particular, the main point is to give the artist the ability to create a large number of different worlds. In a creative approach, The Garden of Chances has been imagined as an ecosystem of artistic creation, allowing to confront the spectator to a poetic vision of meteorological evolutions. In a pedagogical approach, it has been design as a didactic tool, making explicit the dynamic evolution of a vegetal and animal ecosystem.

A complex system

A kind of homeostasy is obtained in this project with a predator-prey system, inside the vegetal environment of a virtual garden (figure below). The latter is obtained with a set of colored graphical elements, which develop more or less favorably depending on meteorological conditions, just like normal plants would do. Since space is limited, both that of the garden and that of the picture, these elements have to share resources (minerals, light, water). If they are too numerous, they interfere with each other, which slows their growth, and even kills some. Conversely, if they are few, each has access to more resources, which promotes growth and allows reproduction. There is therefore a negative feedback loop, which leads to a self-regulation of the virtual garden.

A virtual predator prey ecosystem

In addition, the system includes a simplified food chain whose plant ecosystem is the first level. At a first level, herbivores feed on plants of the base level. At a second level, carnivores feed on herbivores of the first level. This model has been implemented on the JDH platform that I developed during my Ph. D. (C++/OpenGL). The Garden of Chances is a simulated ecosystem only from a metaphorical point of view. It has no pretention to achieve realism and no validation should be searched for. Nevertheless, the dynamics of the populations of the different simulated species (figure below) is characterized by alternating and cyclic dominance of each of the populations of the system, corresponding to the dynamics described in ecology on predator-prey ecosystems (Volterra 1931[3] ).

Cyclic dynamics

From the Garden of Chances to Data Gardens

Regardless of its artistic aims, one can consider The Garden of Chances as an interface for data visualization. I therefore proposed to develop this aspect of visualization of complex data flows, taking advantage of the metaphor of the garden, which I called Data gardens. In The Garden of Chances, spatial overcrowding limit the growth of plants. Similarly, in Data gardens data, overcrowding of the picture must be regulated so that the cognitive load of the user of the interface is acceptable, by limiting the amount of information displayed.

:: References ::

  1. up W. Kandinsky. Du spirituel dans l'art et dans la peinture en particulier. Gallimard, Paris, 1989.
    W. Kandinsky. Point et ligne sur plan - contribution à l'analyse des éléments de la peinture. Gallimard, Paris, 1991
  2. up P. Klee. Théorie de l'art moderne. Denoël, Paris, 1985.
  3. up V. Volterra. Variations and fluctuations of the number of individuals in animal species living together. Animal Ecology, pages 409-448, 1931.