Scott Draves — Electric Sheep

1999

Artists: Scott Draves · Year: 1999 · Medium: Distributed generative screensaver — collectively evolved fractal animations · Substrate: Flame-fractal algorithm (Draves, 1992); distributed rendering across thousands of volunteer machines; central server-driven genetic evolution · Place: San Francisco / New York, USA · Institution: Independent / distributed participation worldwide Electric Sheep, launched by Scott Draves in 1999, is a generative-art system that runs as a screensaver on volunteers' computers worldwide. Each computer, when idle, generates and renders frames of a fractal animation using Draves's flame-fractal algorithm. The rendered frames are uploaded to a central server, which combines them into animations (the sheep). Users vote on which sheep they like; the sheep they prefer are used as parents for the next generation, their genetic material combined algorithmically. Over decades of continuous operation, the Electric Sheep collective has evolved thousands of distinct fractal animations. The project is distributed-computing art in a specific sense that pre-dates blockchain-based distributed systems by a decade. Participants donate CPU cycles; their participation shapes the genetic evolution of the artwork; the artwork exists only as the emergent property of many participating machines. No single computer can produce Electric Sheep; it exists as a network phenomenon. Draves has maintained the project continuously since 1999, a run of more than twenty-five years that makes Electric Sheep one of the longest-running generative artworks in continuous operation. The project has been exhibited at the Whitney, Ars Electronica, and at Google's own art collection. Draves has also produced large-scale public installations using Electric Sheep's output. The conceptual framework Electric Sheep established — distributed participation, genetic evolution, community voting — anticipates much of what the NFT and on-chain generative movement would later claim as innovative. Draves's work predates Art Blocks by twenty-one years. Lore Draves's flame-fractal algorithm (1992) was published openly and has been widely implemented by other artists. Electric Sheep originally ran on Linux and Windows screensavers; it now runs on cloud instances and high-end graphics cards. Draves has kept the project's code open-source throughout its life. He has also released some Electric Sheep-adjacent NFT work in the 2021-22 period. Sources • Draves, Scott — electricsheep.org • Draves, Scott — "The Fractal Flame Algorithm" (2003) • Whitney Museum — exhibition records