Abstract
As research and artistic practices increasingly combine diverse techniques from across artificial intelligence, the integration of artificial life (ALife) and interactive machine learning (IML) represents an underexplored yet promising area. While seemingly disparate, both approaches have been popular with artists due to their potential for lightweight, realtime interaction with complex behaviours. This paper investigates the hybridisation of ALife and IML through diffractive artistic research practice. We developed an ALife-IML integration by combining two creative AI tools; Tölvera for ALife and Anguilla for IML. Focusing on two artistic works – Ex Silens, an immersive performance art piece, and Strengjavera, a generative installation – we report on how our cocreative exploration with this hybrid system led us to offering a new descriptor, Intra-Active Perturbations (IAP). The influence of ALife on the learner-teacher relationship common to IML-based workflows gave way to a dialogue of experimentally probing for artistically useful behaviours. We believe this approach has potential in experimental scientific practice, where real-time interaction is under-utilised.