In 2009 joining the Celebrations of Charles Darwin’s Bicentenary Rachel Cohen developed a version of the Chinese Whispers drawing game that allows for evolution by ‘natural selection’. She consulted Sussex University mathematician Mark Broom and came up with an elegant and simple strategy. Each participant is invited to copy the drawing they judge to be the best from a set of 5 or 6. They also choose the one they consider to be the worst drawing and their drawing replaces it.

So each participant selects from a slightly changed set. But do they improve? The experiment raises the question of what makes a good drawing and is only the start of the research. The artist proposes that if a drawing is somewhat ambiguous participants’ decisions will be based on qualities of the drawing itself rather than successful depiction of its subject.

 

In the examples below the original sets of drawings are made by children from objects at Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, during the Endless Forms exhibition about Darwin.  The copies were made by children and adults at the British Association science festival in Guildford and at Phoenix Brighton.

The population is seen at 10th 20th and 30th generations