Scott Draves - Software Artist

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Clade 1 - "Trefoil"

Clade is the biological term for a group of organisms derived from a common ancestor. The trefoil or "three leaved" clade is created by the part-human, part-machine brain of the Electric Sheep, a breeding ground for artificial life conceived by Draves in 1999. Clade 1 features six different sheep across ten generations.

The framework for the genetic material of all sheep is an open-source algorithm with thousands of parameters and millions of variables that Draves created in 1992, called Flame. Some sheep are introduced by genetic design, from users who harness his algorithms to create new DNA.

The population of Electric Sheep designs are heterogamic -- able to reproduce either sexually with another sheep or without a partner, through the mutation of a single parent's genes. Reproduction is evolutionary, the genetic survival of the most appreciated designs; viewers all over the Internet judge the art on the fly soon after it is generated by their computers.

This work of high-resolution video art offers Drave's personally distilled view of a decade's worth of his work, with the participation of tens of thousands of people and their machines.

Available in an edition of 50 from our website.