Tölvera

Tölvera is a Python library designed for composing together and interacting with basal agencies, inspired by fields such as artificial life (ALife) and self-organising systems. It provides creative coding-style APIs that allow users to combine and compose various built-in behaviors, such as flocking, slime mold growth, and swarming, and also author their own.

With built-in support for Open Sound Control (OSC) via iipyper and interactive machine learning (IML) via anguilla, Tölvera interfaces with and rapidly maps onto existing creative computing software and hardware, striving to be both an accessible and powerful tool for exploring diverse intelligence in artistic contexts.

Inspired by our lab’s location in Iceland, the word Tölvera is an Icelandic kenning based on tölva meaning computer, from tala (number) and völva (prophetess), and vera (being), composed together as number being.

We have employed Tölvera in various collaborative artistic works, including musical performances, compositions, and multimedia installations (see references.bib for peer-reviewed publications). Tölvera’s role in these pieces has mainly been “mappable behaviour engine”, where interface inputs can control Tölvera programs, and Tölvera runtime data can control interface outputs, in practically any combination. In this way, and to controllable degrees, Tölvera can contribute to the underlying dynamics of a given interactive scenario. It can also add a visual component, and equally has been used without projection in other works.

Tölvera uses Taichi, a domain-specific language embedded in Python that enables parallelization. It is experimental software subject to change.

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