Daniela Sirbu

My research is interdisciplinary at the confluence between new media, fine arts, architecture, systems engineering, and evolutionary computing.

Part of my latest work is focused on computational creativity in visual arts. I am interested in developing computational systems, which can autonomously produce original artwork or aid artistic production in interaction with a human user. This provides the grounds for my artistic practice blending art studio approaches with natural computing, systems engineering, cognitive science, and aesthetics.

In the same time, I continue my research on digital exploration of unbuilt architectural projects based on the graphical analysis of the architect's drawings and their cinematic reconstruction in a multi-dimensional environment. Research on human movement, human perception and cognition, unconventional use of digital animation and cinematic techniques are meant to support a metaphorical investigation of architectural projects through navigation in digital virtual spaces.

My research platforms are often based on 3D computer reconstructions and visualization, Virtual Reality, and programming involving computational paradigms such as evolutionary computing, and in particular genetic algorithms.

I continue my traditional art practice and I am currently working on various series, one of these being titled "Draped Movements." This series is building on the opposing forces of motion and confinement. Movement appears as expression of life, of the need to explore and expand knowledge. Confinement in various forms limits or fractures movement and the exploration of the unknown. This clash of forces between motion and confinement provides inspiration for many direction of development for the "Draped Movements" series. The series naturally extends into my new media artistic practice taking cinematic and/or interactive forms of explorations based on 2D and 3D platforms (currently in development).

My photography often serves documentation purposes, often takes a photo journalism approach in candidly capturing life in its natural progress, or it takes an artistic approach in an attempt to find new meaning in the surrounding environments in everyday life. One of my latest photo series is titled "Sculpture Graveyards" and attempts to give new interpretations to form and texture in discarded sculpture.

Topics:

My research is interdisciplinary at the confluence between new media, fine arts, architecture, systems engineering, and evolutionary computing. This spans across several areas:

- computational creativity,

- animation and animation film (2D and 3D)

- 3D art

- 3D computer reconstruction of unbuilt architecture,

- visual communication,

- photography

- aesthetics,

- computational aesthetics,

- natural computing,

- systems engineering.