Rui Filipe Antunes

Lusophone University of Humanities and Technologies | ULHT · CICANT - Centro de Investigação em Comunicação Aplicada, Cultura e Novas Tecnologias

One of the key components of the suspension of disbelief in real-time 3D simulations is the apparent authenticity of actions and gestures played by the individuals of the virtual population. This paper addresses this aspect of simulation, by investigating ways to improve the behavioral realism of virtual humanoid characters in groups and small mult...

We analyse works of digital art that use a technique from artificial life (ALife) called computational ecosystems (CEs). These are systems running on computers where agents are organized in a hierarchical structure (of a food-chain) and trade token units (of energy and biomass) as a way of promoting community dynamics. We analyse a collection of fo...

“Dançar em realidade virtual: Os imaginários de GhostDance Andamento #1” é uma das primeiras publicações afectas ao projecto exploratório GhostDance. Neste artigo, falamos de duas coreografias com realidade virtual – Boidance (2021) e Ghostdance Andamento #1 (2023) – em que alguns bailarinos incorporam, nos movimentos dançados, entidades percebidas...

In this paper, we report the learnings from the development of Easy-Population, a software tool for generation of autonomous populations in virtual simulations and its use in the creation of a 3D recreation of a historical site. In the process, we discuss the animation of virtual historical simulations inhabited by autonomous characters. We claim t...

Os contextos pandémico e pós-pandémico vêm impondo às cidades outras dinâmicas, outros sons, outros ecos, outros percursos, outros visitantes humanos e não humanos. Durante o confinamento, o encerramento de espaços teatrais e expositivos – bem como, durante o desconfinamento, as limitações para a sua utilização - têm tido consequências penosas nas...

Os contextos pandémico e pós-pandémico vêm impondo às cidades outras dinâmicas, outros sons, outros ecos, outros percursos, outros visitantes humanos e não humanos. Durante o confinamento, o encerramento de espaços teatrais e expositivos – bem como, durante o desconfinamento, as limitações para a sua utilização - têm tido consequências penosas nas...

Os contextos pandémico e pós-pandémico vêm impondo às cidades outras dinâmicas, outros sons, outros ecos, outros percursos, outros visitantes humanos e não humanos. Durante o confinamento, o encerramento de espaços teatrais e expositivos – bem como, durante o desconfinamento, as limitações para a sua utilização - têm tido consequências penosas nas...

In the apparent paradox that the idea of “walking in confinement” contains - also in its relationship with the city - we have found, in the confinement experience, some possibilities of operating in this paradoxical tension. These will be hypotheses of choreopolitical potency, if put in opposition to the sensation of self-chorepolicing (the self-mo...

Boidance is a software tool that brings together Performance, Virtual Reality, Swarm simulation and Genetic algorithms. We discuss a tool that enables performers to move with(in) a swarm of virtual geometrical shapes, developed in a collaborative process between dancers, choreographers, and computer scientists. Boidance creates new possibilities of...

This paper provides a contribution to the field of historical simulations of the past. Throughout this document, we will describe a novel model to animate these simulations with autonomous characters exhibiting heterogeneous and spontaneous behaviours and we will discuss a case study, the simulation of the medieval village of Mértola, in the South...

In this paper, we examine virtual ecosystems as general-purpose authoring tools for heterogeneity and spontaneity, and discuss the use of such systems as animation drivers in a variety of contexts: from artistic abstract work, to dance choreographies, or even in the simulation of historical spaces. First, we present the background, motivation and s...

From historical advice to 3D modeling and programming, the process of reconstructing cultural heritage sites populated with virtual inhabitants is lengthy and expensive, and it requires a large set of skills and tools. These constraints make it increasingly difficult, however not unattainable, for small archaeological sites to build their own simul...

This research is an exploration of issues surrounding the artistic production of Computational Ecosystems. A Computational Ecosystem is a system of agents designed to emulate, in the computer, biological systems where autonomous individuals are organized in a hierarchical food chain and interact by trading units of energy. This thesis maps out this...

Creating 3D reconstruction of the past is a challenging task requiring a vast set of technical skills, with teams usually including historians, 3D artists and IT technicians. In this paper, we describe our combined efforts to work under a low-budget pipeline to make a 3D simulation of the medieval village of Mértola in the south of Portugal. The wo...

In this paper, we Secdescribe an agency model for generative populations of humanoid characters, based upon temporal variation of affective states. We have built on an existing agent framework from Sequeira et al. [18], and adapted it to be susceptible to temperamental and emotive states in the context of cooperative and non-cooperative interaction...

We study the use of the generative systems known as computational ecosystems to convey artistic and narrative aims. These are virtual worlds running on computers, composed of agents that trade units of energy and emulate cycles of life and behaviors adapted from biological life forms. In this article we propose a conceptual framework in order to un...

In this paper a novel approach to a decentralized autonomous model of agency for general purpose Non-Player Characters (NPCs) is presented: the AI model of Computational Ecosystems. We describe the technology used to animate a population of gregarious humanoid avatars in a virtual world. This artistic work is an ethnographic project where a populat...

A novel approach to a decentralized autonomous model of agency for general purpose Non-Player Characters (NPCs) is presented: Computational Ecosystems as a model of AI. We describe the technology used to animate a population of gregarious humanoid characters in the virtual world Where is Lourenco Marques? an ethnographic artistic work characterized...

This work is dedicated to the former city of Lourenço Marques, which since the independence of Mozambique has became known as Maputo. In the landscape of colonial Portugal, Lourenço Marques was the proud capital of the district of Moçambique (Mozambique). This work consecrates those who lived and inhabited that place and time. During the process o...

In this paper we introduce a novel approach to dance choreographies in virtual worlds. We present a dance performed by avatars in a virtual world, where a computational ecosystem provides a mechanism driving the actions and movements of the avatars. First, we discuss the background and motivations, and describe the performance. Then, we describe th...

Recently there has been an exponential increase in invasive infections caused by Streptococcus ß hemolyticus group A. In about one third of cases they are complicated by toxic shock syndrome, characterized by septic shock and multiorgan failure. The authors, by their rarity, report a case of bacteraemia caused by Streptococcus pyogenes complicated...

Recently there has been an exponential increase in invasive infections caused by Streptococcus ß hemolyticus group A. In about one third of cases they are complicated by toxic shock syndrome, characterized by septic shock and multiorgan failure. The authors, by their rarity, report a case of bacteraemia caused by Streptococcus pyogenes complicated...

Synthetic biology as an artistic technique draws on the exploration of the mechanisms used by organisms to process information and develop their morphologies to address a diverse range of aesthetic agendas. The instrumentalisation of biological processes and methodologies by artists is called Evolutionary Art (EvoArt) and this practice has been att...

xTNZ, is focused on the exploration of the possibilities of using artificial life in the context of art. My aim isto develop an ecosystem based on a real-time three-dimensional PC based system sustaining a “living” virtual environment. The entities populating this virtual world have been designed to be active and responsive. They behave and interact...

xTNZ, is focused on the exploration of the possibilities of using artificial life in the context of art. My aim isto develop an ecosystem based on a real-time three-dimensional PC based system sustaining a “living” virtual environment. The entities populating this virtual world have been designed to be active and responsive. They behave and interact...