Evan X. Merz has released Black Allegheny, one of the first albums composed entirely of swarm generated music, using an algorithmic Java program he wrote called Becoming.
Swarm Controlled Sampler - Becoming Live from Evan Merz.
Inspired by John Cage's chance-based compositions using graphs and gamut, Merz wrote the software for Becoming and incorporated the ideas of swarm intelligence.Each "agent" has preferences that determine its movement around the grid. These values dictate how likely the agent is to move toward food (green), how likely the agent is to move toward the swarm (black dots), and how likely the performer is to avoid the predator (red dot). Audio files are triggered by the blue squares.
Download or listen to the album on Merz's bandcamp or check out more Becoming videos on vimeo.
