From Music to Image a Computational Creativity Approach

In this paper we propose a possible approach for a cross-domain association between the musical and visual domains. We present a system that generates abstract images having as inspiration music files as the basis for the creative process. The system extracts available features from a MIDI music file given as input, associating them to visual characteristics, thus generating three different outputs. First, the Random and Associated Images - that result from the application of our approach considering different shape’s distribution - and second, the Genetic Image, that is the result of the application of one Genetic Algorithm that considers music and color theory while searching for better results. The results of our evaluation conducted through online surveys demonstrate that our system is capable of generating abstract images from music, since a majority of users consider the images to be abstract, and that they have a relation with the music that served as the basis for the association process. Moreover, the majority of the participants ranked highest the Genetic Image.