Each “neuron” consisted of analog electronics corresponding to each of 6 functions: Input, Summing, Threshold, “Offset,” “Output,” and “Structure” (not sure about those latter three). The connectivity was determined by hand.
Phil states that the sculpture is not intelligent, but rather “some kind of squid baby.”
Neural networks have great potential for contributing to the arts. For example, JP Thivierge used results from the cascade correlation learning algorithm to visualize random output values from a neural network:
Here’s some art from a portion of rat brain placed into a petri dish:
And, of course, there’s Jonathan McCabe‘s fantastic network art:
Jon McCabe’s process is perhaps the most interesting. The color of each pixel corresponds to the behavior of the network at a particular combination of two parameters, indicate by the X and Y coordinates of that pixel. (I get the feeling there is substantial artistic license taken with the results – for example, one interview indicates that each network generates up to 6000 images, and the best are selected by McCabe himself).
Update: jrandom from reddit has also done something similar, by randomly weighting all connections in a three-layer feedforward network with two inputs (x, y coordinates in these pictures) and three outputs (r, g, and b values for each pixel). Here’s an example of the result:
It sounds like none of these networks were trained to produce good art – but they seem to have some “natural” talent regardless!