{"id":215,"date":"2007-08-09T13:12:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-09T17:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=215"},"modified":"2007-08-09T13:12:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-09T17:12:00","slug":"ant-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=215","title":{"rendered":"Ant Works"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s always amazed me how careful and disciplined insects can be. One of the many wonders I saw when visiting the tropical Gulf coast of Mexico were leaf-cutter ants. Up here in Canada (Toronto), ants don’t do much except crawl around and occasionally make an anthill. Leaf cutters make Canadian ants look primitive.<\/p>\n

Although leaf-cutters can probably be a problem when they decide to remove all the leaves off a tree you’d like to keep, they can be quite inspiring when you consider how tiny they are, and what enormous achievements they can make just by being cooperative. The Block Wave distortion filter from showFoto and the digiKam project<\/a>, makes me feel I’ve harnessed a colony of digital ants to dig and chew old images into astounding new things.<\/p>\n


This image resized to 600×800 and zapped with Block Wave, default settings, gets the above image<\/center><\/p>\n

Perhaps, “harnessed” is not the right word. Unleashed is a more accurate one. The ants march to the beat of their own drum, their own set of instructions, which I rarely understand, but gradually learn to work with.<\/p>\n

And to appreciate. Nothing is more pleasant than to be able to just watch insects work away without the fear that they might be threatening you. Well, actually, I suppose there is something more pleasant than that: it’s the expectation that they’re working for you, creating something of such curious appearance, that you could never even begin to imagine, much less produce on your own.<\/p>\n

I think the label “artist” is an offense to the great machineries that make these things. These block-wave ant-drawings are more than the results of human effort. I think of it as a digital beekeeping. There’s the hive, and here’s the honey. I slide a blank sheet of digital paper into the hive, and the bees do their thing. Later, I take it out and either start all over again or save it, as is. I don’t change a thing. How can you sweeten honey?<\/p>\n

Tim Hodkinson<\/a><\/p>\n

Technorati Tags: leaf cutter ants<\/a> bee keeping<\/a> digital art<\/a> fractal art<\/a> 6th Dimension<\/a> lazy man walking<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s always amazed me how careful and disciplined insects can be. One of the many wonders I saw when visiting the tropical Gulf coast of Mexico were leaf-cutter ants. Up here in Canada (Toronto), ants don’t do much except crawl around and occasionally make an anthill. Leaf cutters make Canadian ants look primitive. Although leaf-cutters … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":51,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=51","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":0},"title":"Electro Sine Trap Tentacles of Terror","author":"Tim","date":"11 September, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been ages now since ants took over the Earth, but they still enjoy reliving the old battles.\"One small step for an ant, one giant leap for all insects.\" Conquering the humans was the defining moment in the civilization of the ants.When they read what we wrote about them in\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=51#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":211,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=211","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":1},"title":"showFoto 0.5.0: Doorway to the 6th Dimension!","author":"Tim","date":"3 August, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Made from the original, below, using Block Wave with default settings on a resized (enlarged) versionI wonder how many of us, capable of doing so many things, would be reduced to only one single, useful, function if the people we live or work with could custom configure us? That's the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":240,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=240","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":2},"title":"Timbuktu","author":"Tim","date":"16 October, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Technorati Tags: timbuktu block wave filter photoshop filters digital art fractal art join the mirage","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1538,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1538","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":3},"title":"The Jumping Spiders of Oklahoma, and elsewhere","author":"Tim","date":"8 September, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Is DNA an algorithm?\u00a0 Can its renderings be presented as Algorithmic Art?\u00a0 Will they jump down off the wall and attack the well-dressed gallery patrons? Consider the humble jumping spiders of Oklahoma: As always, click on any image to view it on the original web site or in full-size. It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1538#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/jumping-spiders-of-Oklahoma.png?fit=474%2C786&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":243,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=243","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":4},"title":"Stone of Mystery!","author":"Tim","date":"22 October, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Look at it. Stare into it.Learn it's mysteries --if you dare!Stop! Stop!Your mind is in its icy grip!Run, you fool!The Stone of Mystery will DESTROY YOU!!!Your puny brain can not survive its thunderous torrent of KNOWLEDGE!!!(sung to the tune of, \"Here Comes Santa Claus\")Could this be the innocent precursor of...\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=243#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4414,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=4414","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":5},"title":"More Microscopy","author":"cruelanimal","date":"3 January, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Mosquito eyes. Microscopy courtesy of Oliver Meckes. \u00a0 I first wrote about microscopy on OT back in September of 2009 when discussing Luke Jerram's glass sculptures. I said then that microscopy \"frequently reveals fractal characteristics in the microcosmic world.\" Was I ever right. The image gallery at FEI, a company\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=4414#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/MP_Caterpillar_sm.jpg?fit=450%2C410&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}