I've had a long interest structured randomness and how it can lead to interesting compositions. This idea has been exploited in modern art, and more recently, in art created with digital tools. These images come from a program I'm developing that uses hierarchies of randomness to present compositions for consideration. Simple geometric shapes and random recurvise lines are the compositional elements. The "accepted images" have been refined in Photoshop, usually with suble textures, somtimes with more aggressive changes.
These are abstract compositions, sometimes suggesting a meaningful theme. The last three reflect Photoshop modifications that alter the basic characteristics of the initial image.
The Mask shows a series of mutations of a single image. The original is a photograph of a shaman's mask (taken at the Smithsonian). I used a program I'm developing (see Random Program Galleries) to apply cellular automata transformations to the image. This process uses rules to transform a pixel value (or a block of pixels) based on the state of neighboring pixels. The program generates a random number of rules (10 - 20) derived from the image, so each invocation produces a different result. The default mutation mode is applied to blocks of pixels (6 - 10), and often results in larger scale Sierpinski Triangles and Sliders characteristic of cellular automata. There is also a detail mutation mode, that takes the same rules and applies the transformation for each pixel (rather slow) -- the resulting effects (triangels, sliders) are only apparent in close up views, but can provide an interesting textural effect. Many of the mask images are a combination of the two mutations.