Aug 11, 2014 1:00 PM

Gallery: These Finger Paintings Are Actually Complex Ant Pathways

Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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The Return Trip is Never the Same is an art project that explores both insect behavior and how technology affects human language.
Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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While at Google’s Cultural Institute in Paris, for their artist residency, Adriana Ramić began meeting with etymology enthusiasts at the local Museum of Natural History.

Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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There she met a scientist, who gave her a copy of a book with no text, just pages of drawings of ant movement patterns by Victor Cornetz, a French topographer and a naturalist.
Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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Ramić traced those ant patterns onto an Android Swype keyboard.

Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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Because Swype uses algorithms and a language model to interpret fingertip swipes into text, this generated blocks of nonsensical sentences.
Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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Sample text is seen here: "sadness golf dry please drafting."

Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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Ramic re-interpreted the ant pathways into textured strokes that look like finger paints.
Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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She repeated this technique with 190 of Cornetz’s drawings, in all 71 languages supported by Swype, and wound up with 82 pages in her art e-book.

Illustration: Adriana Ramić
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“It’s about tracking how aunts move, and how Swype is tracking me," Ramić says.

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