While everyone has an idea of what creativity is, it's quite a fuzzy concept upon closer examination. Is it a trait unique to humans? What abilities allow us to be creative? Are we not all creating things merely based on past experiences and observations when we paint, write, compose, or design?

To spark a discussion about creativity during the Dutch Design Week, we created an installation that outputs visual work based on its observations. The system was fed various design principles related to composition and color theory. Using computer vision and audio analysis, it observed the environment and made decisions based on these impressions. Active for nine consecutive days, the system produced a serie of unique works—each one an abstract capture of a moment.

Special thanks to Martijn Ruissen for the production of the 9-day exhibit.

This prototype is part of an ongoing research, The Creative Agent Series, which investigates the potential role of (AI) systems in the creative process.