Mark Tensen's Blog

Mark Tensen

On finding synergies in programming, music, AI, artificial life, and design

About me, X, Instagram, Bandcamp, Linkedin, CV

Topics

It's important to get it into words, because otherwise you miss it - the brain is set up to hide the assumption - David Bohm

The purpose of this blog is to have a repository for my thinking, notes and projects. A set of markdown files that I can publish and keep track of, and can be adjusted to my needs over time. It's a "Memex"; a living document and archive of where I've been, and a tool that advises where to go *.

2025

My biggest pytorch workflow gripe

programming, ML

When I'm developing/debugging in pytorch, for years, I encounter the following annoyance all the time: A debug session is open, I highlight a line or number of lines and hit ... continue reading

Reflections on ALife 2025 conference

reflections, artificial-life

Because of my collaboration with the ALife institute, I had the honor to get a ticket to ALife 2025 sponsored. It was my first conference, and I thought it ... continue reading

Blogs I like

reflections, programming, ML

I like personal blogs specifically because they're less 'designed by commitee'. Less tailored, more opinionated. Higher chance also to stumble into a writer's other interests you'd otherwise not encounter; ... continue reading

On Minimizing WGSL / WebGPU texture plumbing

webgpu, programming, gpugpu

Here's a quick and powerful thing I learned during the development of our aritificial life project/paper from my collaborator Grisha Szep. Buffers are really powerful, because they're easy to ... continue reading

Emergence vs 'unexpected' emergence in artificial life

artificial-life, complex-systems, reflections

I liked Michael Levin's definition of emergence in a podcast with Kurt Jaimungal. According to him, central to emergence is an unexpected outcome. My simple working definition was always ... continue reading

My favorite WebGPU random function

webgpu, programming, gpugpu

I thought it was worth sharing this for its value, but also understanding the implementation gave me a more intimate understanding of some fundamental CS concepts: hashing, bitwise casting, ... continue reading

Detecting NaNs in WebGPU

webgpu, programming, gpugpu

NaNs can sometimes arise in WebGPU / WGSL when doing normalizations or divisions. Most important is setting up guardrails to safely do this, but sometimes it's nice to have ... continue reading

My iOS app Walk Walk Walk, and a more authentic internet

generative-art, reflections

WalkWalkWalk as an example The app: https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/walkwalkwalk/id6742700740?l=en-GB The iOS app I've developed called WalkWalkWalk is more a creative outlet and artistic endeavor than it is its logic. It's ... continue reading

2024

Neural Cellular Automata Swarming

generative-art, artificial-life, complex-systems, gpugpu

So how does it work? I started with my standard flocking code. Then added a new buffer containing for each boid the 4-number state, which is also each boids' ... continue reading

Reality-questioning Ideas before bed

reflections

My day-to-day grind means singular focus, lots of screen-time, programming, and discussions around the ideas I'm working on. I love the grind, but the world can feel quite small ... continue reading

Two collective-intelligence models for the internet: the Rhizome and the Borg

reflections

This post was originally deployed on escherthink.com, a startup I'm co-founding. Escher Think reduces entropy in teams with ideas from collective intelligence. This post explores two analogies for the ... continue reading

Hierarchical BOIDS, Game of Life, recursion and a model for consciousness

complex-systems, reflections, generative-art, artificial-life, gpugpu

This post explores a research idea that's been on my mind. It continues on my earlier research on how to simulate an order of magnitude more boids, but it's ... continue reading

Interview on music and technology with Griff Fulton on Delayed.com

music, reflections, generative-art

This interview was originally posted on delayed on occasion of my new EP Jurassimo link We are so pleased to introduce you to Tensen Park, the mastermind behind the ... continue reading

Order of magnitude more boids while keeping global dynamics

graphics, complex-systems, generative-art, artificial-life, gpugpu

Here's some new results simulating an order of magnitude more boids, while keeping global interactivity accross the canvas. I'll share more what that means in this article, and how ... continue reading

15 Questions music interview on my EP Jurassimo

reflections, music, generative-art

This interview was originally posted on 15 questions https://15questions.net/interview/tensen-park-production-technology-and-creativity/ with music and images Name: Mark Tensen aka Tensen Park Nationality: Dutch Occupation: Producer Current release: Tensen Park's Jurassimo EP ... continue reading

More raw websites please

reflections

I loved the 00's internet as a kid. The sites were often ugly, the styling inconsistent, yet they were very personal to the creators, and really pulled you into ... continue reading

Estimating a 3D scene with primitives using raymarching and differentiable rendering in JAX

graphics, ML, generative-art, gpugpu

At hypothetic we had a series of R&D projects focussing on providing tools for the 3D asset creation pipeline. One of these projects was on differentiable volume rendering. We ... continue reading

MaxMSP learnings

music, generative-art, reflections

Reflections on preventing a mess in MaxMSP/Max for Live TLDR. It's hella hard to avoid Spaghetti. But I alleviated some of my suffering with the points in ... continue reading

MIDI Evolution - a generative music device

music, generative-art, reflections

Excited to have released a new MaxMSP Ableton device called Midi Evolution that's been quite central in the way I make music. The device is called MIDI Evolution, and ... continue reading

2022

Tensen Park - Reflections on my music

music, reflections

In this post I'll reflect on the unreleased 'Molasses' music album I've been trying to finish as Tensen Park. I'll try to make conscious what I've been unconsciously trying ... continue reading

Reinforcement Learning applied to sculpting - A technical story of AI craftsmanship

ML, Reinforcement-Learning, generative-art

This is a technical overview of our reinforcement learning sculpting project. We will go into the reinforcement learning part, but also some additional technical details. Comprises work by: onformative.com ... continue reading

Firefly Synchronizer, a chaotic system Max4Live device

MaxMSP, music, complex-systems, generative-art

Introduction Earlier on I shared about my work with firefly synchronization, or pulse-coupled oscillators. The mechanism is basically that we have a group of fireflies/oscillators, that emit pulses, each ... continue reading

Artificial life, fireflies and music production

graphics, complex-systems, generative-art, artificial-life

Complexity of nature, and simulations I'm interested in the emergence of intelligence, and replicating the beautiful complexity of nature. Often, these systems have a level of organization that ... continue reading

2021

Quantifying interestingness in images using information theory

generative-art, complex-systems

Making art with generative systems often involves a lot of parameter settings, randomness, and fine-tuning to get to a nice result. It’s a lot of work! Especially when dealing ... continue reading

A primer on Reinforcement Learning, and its application to art

ML, Reinforcement-Learning, generative-art

In recent years, Reinforcement Learning (RL), once a small branch within the field of AI, has gotten quite some attention. This was largely due to its spectacular success of ... continue reading

Music - Tensen Park

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. - Aldous Huxley

Topics

programming, ML

When I'm developing/debugging in pytorch, for years, I encounter the following annoyance all the time: A debug session is open, I highlight a line or number of lines and hit ... continue reading

reflections, artificial-life

Because of my collaboration with the ALife institute, I had the honor to get a ticket to ALife 2025 sponsored. It was my first conference, and I thought it ... continue reading

reflections, programming, ML

I like personal blogs specifically because they're less 'designed by commitee'. Less tailored, more opinionated. Higher chance also to stumble into a writer's other interests you'd otherwise not encounter; ... continue reading

webgpu, programming, gpugpu

Here's a quick and powerful thing I learned during the development of our aritificial life project/paper from my collaborator Grisha Szep. Buffers are really powerful, because they're easy to ... continue reading

artificial-life, complex-systems, reflections

I liked Michael Levin's definition of emergence in a podcast with Kurt Jaimungal. According to him, central to emergence is an unexpected outcome. My simple working definition was always ... continue reading

webgpu, programming, gpugpu

I thought it was worth sharing this for its value, but also understanding the implementation gave me a more intimate understanding of some fundamental CS concepts: hashing, bitwise casting, ... continue reading

webgpu, programming, gpugpu

NaNs can sometimes arise in WebGPU / WGSL when doing normalizations or divisions. Most important is setting up guardrails to safely do this, but sometimes it's nice to have ... continue reading

generative-art, reflections

WalkWalkWalk as an example The app: https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/walkwalkwalk/id6742700740?l=en-GB The iOS app I've developed called WalkWalkWalk is more a creative outlet and artistic endeavor than it is its logic. It's ... continue reading

generative-art, artificial-life, complex-systems, gpugpu

So how does it work? I started with my standard flocking code. Then added a new buffer containing for each boid the 4-number state, which is also each boids' ... continue reading

reflections

My day-to-day grind means singular focus, lots of screen-time, programming, and discussions around the ideas I'm working on. I love the grind, but the world can feel quite small ... continue reading

reflections

This post was originally deployed on escherthink.com, a startup I'm co-founding. Escher Think reduces entropy in teams with ideas from collective intelligence. This post explores two analogies for the ... continue reading

complex-systems, reflections, generative-art, artificial-life, gpugpu

This post explores a research idea that's been on my mind. It continues on my earlier research on how to simulate an order of magnitude more boids, but it's ... continue reading

music, reflections, generative-art

This interview was originally posted on delayed on occasion of my new EP Jurassimo link We are so pleased to introduce you to Tensen Park, the mastermind behind the ... continue reading

graphics, complex-systems, generative-art, artificial-life, gpugpu

Here's some new results simulating an order of magnitude more boids, while keeping global interactivity accross the canvas. I'll share more what that means in this article, and how ... continue reading

reflections, music, generative-art

This interview was originally posted on 15 questions https://15questions.net/interview/tensen-park-production-technology-and-creativity/ with music and images Name: Mark Tensen aka Tensen Park Nationality: Dutch Occupation: Producer Current release: Tensen Park's Jurassimo EP ... continue reading

reflections

I loved the 00's internet as a kid. The sites were often ugly, the styling inconsistent, yet they were very personal to the creators, and really pulled you into ... continue reading

graphics, ML, generative-art, gpugpu

At hypothetic we had a series of R&D projects focussing on providing tools for the 3D asset creation pipeline. One of these projects was on differentiable volume rendering. We ... continue reading

music, generative-art, reflections

Reflections on preventing a mess in MaxMSP/Max for Live TLDR. It's hella hard to avoid Spaghetti. But I alleviated some of my suffering with the points in ... continue reading

music, generative-art, reflections

Excited to have released a new MaxMSP Ableton device called Midi Evolution that's been quite central in the way I make music. The device is called MIDI Evolution, and ... continue reading

music, reflections

In this post I'll reflect on the unreleased 'Molasses' music album I've been trying to finish as Tensen Park. I'll try to make conscious what I've been unconsciously trying ... continue reading

ML, Reinforcement-Learning, generative-art

This is a technical overview of our reinforcement learning sculpting project. We will go into the reinforcement learning part, but also some additional technical details. Comprises work by: onformative.com ... continue reading

MaxMSP, music, complex-systems, generative-art

**Introduction** Earlier on I shared about my work with firefly synchronization, or pulse-coupled oscillators. The mechanism is basically that we have a group of fireflies/oscillators, that emit pulses, each ... continue reading

graphics, complex-systems, generative-art, artificial-life

Complexity of nature, and simulations I'm interested in the emergence of intelligence, and replicating the beautiful complexity of nature. Often, these systems have a level of organization that ... continue reading

generative-art, complex-systems

Making art with generative systems often involves a lot of parameter settings, randomness, and fine-tuning to get to a nice result. It’s a lot of work! Especially when dealing ... continue reading

ML, Reinforcement-Learning, generative-art

In recent years, Reinforcement Learning (RL), once a small branch within the field of AI, has gotten quite some attention. This was largely due to its spectacular success of ... continue reading

Introduction Earlier on I shared about my work with firefly synchronization, or pulse-coupled oscillators. The mechanism is basically that we have a group of fireflies/oscillators, that emit pulses, each ... continue reading