LO 1 – My Inspiration

The Dancing Salesman, Problem (2011) by Simon Colton

The project I find interesting is The Dancing Salesman, Problem (2011) by Simon Colton. Colton wrote his own software that creates a photograph into an artistic piece by sourcing information and materials online, called The Painting Fool—the goal of this software is to be taken seriously as its own creative artist. The figures in The Dancing Salesman Problem were generated using context-free design grammar. I found this piece extremely interesting because of the debate about whether artificial, inhuman software can be considered a “real” artist, especially since The Painting Fool requires very minimal assistance and direction to create and run on its own. It also begs the question of what is considered “art?” Is it dependent on who or what the creator is? For me, art evokes some form of emotional reaction, and The Painting Fool has actually been able to do this after being paired with Maja Pantic’s emotion-detection software.