The automatic synthesis of abstract textures is, to some extent, feasible. As evidenced by abstract art theoreticians, one can think of an abstract picture as a tree of elementary shapes interacting according to a short list of compositional laws such as occlusion, exclusion and bordering, and by rendering rules such as transparency, tessellation and color selection. Randomizing the shape generator and the composition and rendering laws yields an algorithm generating random abstract textures. We have designed a user-friendly online tool that implements this algorithm.

ABSTRACT Scientific understanding of natural phenomena should be a legitimate part of aesthetic theory, as this understanding involves the beauty of insight into the inner workings of nature. This insight is not always easy to communicate. Despite the huge progress made during the 20th century, fundamental physics now faces puzzles and paradoxes involving the infinitely small (the frontier of high energies) and the infinitely large (the overall structure of the observed universe). Working in basic science is fascinating but difficult. Discoveries happen not in a linear manner but just as they do in the creation of a work of art.