In common with natural selection and animal husbandry, the members of a population undergoing artificial evolution modify their form or behaviour over many reproductive generations in response to a selective regime.
In Interactive Evolution the selective regime may be applied by the viewer explicitly by selecting individuals which are aesthtically pleasing, as in Richard Dawkins' Biomorphs program. Alternatively a selection pressure can be generated implicitly, for example according to the length of time a viewer spends near a piece of evolving art.
Equally, evolution may be employed as a mechanism for generating a dynamic world of adaptive individuals, in which the selection pressure is imposed by the program, and the viewer plays no role in selection, as in the Black Shoals project.
Further Reading