Generative art

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Ellsworth Kelly, The Meschers, 1951, oil on canvas, 59 x 59 inches, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Picture produced by Drawing Machine 2

Hans Haacke, Condensation Cube, begun 1965, completed 2008; plexiglass and water; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Joseph Nechvatal Orgiastic abattOir,2004 computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas created by viral-based C++ software

Sergio Maltagliati, Iridem for trombone and clarinet, 1983

Maurizio Bolognini, Interactive installation (CIMs series), 2000

Installation view of Irrationnal Geometrics 2008 by Pascal Dombis

Generative art refers to art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system. An autonomous system in this context is one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that would otherwise require decisions made directly by the artist. In casual use "generative art" is often used to refer to computer generated artwork that is algorithmically determined. But generative art can also be made using systems of chemistry, biology, mechanics and robotics, smart materials, manual randomization, mathematics, data mapping, symmetry and tiling, and more.

Examples of Generative Art

Music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Musikalisches Würfelspiel" (Musical Dice Game) 1757 is an early example of a generative system based on randomness. Dice were used to select musical sequences from a numbered pool of previously composed phrases. This system provided a balance of order and disorder. The structure was based on an element of order on one hand, and disorder on the other.

Composers such as John Cage^[1] and Brian Eno^[2] have used generative systems in their works.

Fine Art

The artist Ellsworth Kelly created paintings by using chance operations to assign colors in a grid. He also created works on paper that he then cut into strips or squares and reassembled using chance operations to determine placement.^[3]

Artists such as Hans Haacke have explored processes of physical and social systems in artistic context.

François Morellet has used both highly ordered and highly disordered systems in his artwork. Some of his paintings feature regular systems of radial or parallel lines to create Moiré Patterns. In other works he has used chance operations to determine the coloration of grids. ^{[4] [5]}

Sol LeWitt created generative art in the form of systems expressed in natural language and systems of geometric permutation.

Harold Cohen's AARON system is a longstanding project combining software artificial intelligence with robotic painting devices to create physical artifacts.,^[6]

Steina and Woody Vasulka are video art pioneers who used analog video feedback to create generative art. Video feedback is now cited as an example of deterministic chaos, and the early explorations by the Vasulkas anticipated contemporary science by many years.

Software systems exploiting evolutionary computing to create visual form include those created by Scott Draves and Karl Sims.

The digital artist Joseph Nechvatal has exploited models of viral contagion.^[7]

Autopoiesis by Ken Rinaldo includes fifteen musical and robotic sculptures that interact with the public and modify their behaviors based on both the presence of the participants and each other.^[8]

Maurizio Bolognini works with generative machines to address conceptual and social concerns.^[9].

Mark Napier is a pioneer in data mapping, creating works based on the streams of zeros and ones in ethernet traffic, as part of the "Carnivore" project. Martin Wattenberg pushed this theme further, transforming "data sets" as diverse as musical scores (in "Shape of Song", 2001) and Wikipedia edits (History Flow, 2003, with Fernanda Viegas) into dramatic visual compositions.

Software as Art

For some artists graphic user interfaces and computer code have become an independent art form in themselves. Adrian Ward created Auto-Illustrator as a commentary on software and generative methods applied to art and design.

Architecture

In 1987 Celestino Soddu created the artificial DNA of Italian Medieval towns able to generate endless 3D models of cities identifiable as belonging to the idea.^[10]

Literature

Writers such as Tristan Tzara, Brion Gysin, and William Burroughs used the cut-up technique to introduce randomization to literature as a generative system.

Generative Art Systems and Methods

Generative art systems can be categorized as being ordered, disordered, or complex. Here complex systems are those that have a mixture of both order and disorder and typically exhibit emergence.

Ordered generative art systems can include serial art, data mapping, the use of symmetry and tiling, number sequences and series, proportions such as the golden ratio, and combinatorics. Disordered generative art systems typically exploit some form of randomization, stochastics, or aspects of chaos theory.

While ordered generative art systems are as old as art itself, and disordered generative art systems came to prominence in the 20th century, contemporary generative art practice tends to lean in the direction of complex generative systems. Evolutionary computing approaches have been especially productive as a way to harness and steer complex expressions of aesthetic form and sound at a high level either by interactively choosing and breeding individual results leading to improved hybrids, or by applying automatic selection rules, or both.

Other computational generative systems that move towards complexity include diffusion-limited aggregation, L-systems, neural networks, cellular automata, reaction-diffusion systems, artificial life, and other biologically inspired methods such as swarm behaviour.

While some generative art exists as static artifacts produced by previous unseen processes, generative art can also be viewed developing in real-time. Typically such works are never displayed the same way twice. For example, graphical programming environments (e.g. Max/Msp, Pure Data or vvvv) as well as classic yet user-friendly programming environments such as Processing or openFrameworks are used to create real-time generative audiovisual artistic expressions in the Demoscene and in VJ-culture.

Theories of Generative Art

In the most widely cited theory of generative art Philip Galanter^[11] was the first to describe generative art systems in the context of complexity theory. In particular the notion of Murray Gell-Mann and Seth Lloyd's effective complexity was cited. In this view both highly ordered and highly disordered generative art can be viewed as simple. Highly ordered generative art minimizes entropy and allows maximal data compression, and highly disordered generative art maximizes entropy and disallows significant data compression. Maximally complex generative art blends order and disorder in a manner similar to biological life, and indeed biologically inspired methods are most frequently used to create complex generative art. This view is at odds with the earlier information theory influenced views of Max Bense^[12] and Abraham Moles^[13] where complexity in art increases with disorder.

There are two additional points worth noting. Galanter notes that given the use of visual symmetry, pattern, and repetition by the most ancient known cultures generative art is as old as art itself. He also addresses the mistaken equivalence by some that rule-based art is synonymous with generative art.^[14] For example, some art is based on constraint rules that disallow the use of certain colors or shapes. Such art is not generative because constraint rules are not constructive, i.e. by themselves they don't assert what is to be done, only what cannot be done.

In a later article Margaret Boden and Ernest Edmonds^[15] present an overview of generative art and allied practices to develop a more precise language for critical discussion. They agree that generative art need not be restricted to that done using computers, and that some rule-based art is not generative. They go on to develop a technical vocabulary that includes Ele-art (electronic art), C-art (computer art), D-art (digital art), CA-art (computer assisted art), G-art (generative art), CG-art (computer based generative art), Evo-art (evolutionary based art), R-art (robotic art), I-art (interactive art), CI-art (computer based interactive art), and VR-art (virtual reality art).

In both accounts the term generative art does not describe an art movement, ideology, or theory of aesthetics. The term refers to how the art is made, and does not take into account why it was made or what the content of the artwork is. Nevertheless a number of questions, some in the above accounts and some not, immediately come to mind when one considers generative art.

Those issues include:

• The problem of authorship - With generative art how do traditional views of the artist shift regarding credit, expression, provenance, and so on?
• The problem of uniqueness - Traditional art artifacts are treasured as unique objects, but when such objects can be produced in quantity does that diminish the value of the art?
• The problem of autonomy - Since the artist creates the system, and to date all such systems are presumed to be unconscious, can the system be thought of as being autonomous in the same way a human artist is?
• The problem of authenticity - Given it is in part created by an unemotional and unthinking system, is generative art really art at all?
• The problem of dynamics - Some have opined that generative art must exhibit to the audience change over time, and that static artifacts made using generative systems outside the view of the audience are something less.
• The problem of postmodernism - Are generative art systems the ultimate expression of the postmodern condition, or as Galanter^[16] suggests do they point to a new synthesis based on a complexity-inspired world-view?
• The problem of creativity - Can generative art systems be considered creative when they are merely unpredictable and typically lack any self-critical capacity?

See also

• Algorithmic art
• Artmedia
• Computer art
• Conway's Game of Life
• Digital morphogenesis
• Dynamic painting
• Evolutionary art
• Generative music
• Generative systems
• Immersion (virtual reality)
• Interactive art
• New media art
• Software art
• Systems art
• Systems theory
• Virtual art

Footnotes

References

• Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, At the Edge of Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2006
• Maurizio Bolognini Postdigitale. Rome: Carocci Editore, 2008
• Christine Buci-Glucksmann, "L’art à l’époque virtuel", in Frontières esthétiques de l’art, Arts 8, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004
• Fred Forest Art et Internet, Editions Cercle D'Art / Imaginaire Mode d'Emploi, 2008
• GA definitions http://www.soban-art.com/definitions.asp
• Philip Galanter Generative art and rules-based art., Vague Terrain (2006)
• Philip Galanter Complexism and the role of evolutionary art in "The art of artificial evolution : a handbook on evolutionary art and music", Springer
• Philip Galanter What is Generative Art? Complexity theory as a context for art theory, 2003 International Conference on Generative Art
• Donald Kuspit The Matrix of Sensations VI: Digital Artists and the New Creative Renaissance
• Donald Kuspit "Del Arte Analogico al Arte Digital" in Arte Digital Y Videoarte, Kuspit, D. ed., Consorcio del Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid
• Alan Liu The Laws of Cool, Chicago Press
• Margot Lovejoy Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age Routledge 2004
• Robert C. Morgan Digital Hybrids, Art Press volume #255
• Christiane Paul Digital Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd
• Matt Pearson Generative Art, Manning 2011
• Frank Popper From Technological to Virtual Art, MIT Press/Leonardo Books
• Frank Popper Ecrire sur l'art : De l'art optique a l'art virtuel, L'Harmattan 2007
• Bruce Wands Art of the Digital Age, London: Thames & Hudson

External links

• www.generativeart.com. Annual Generative Art International Conference
• Generative Art wiki
• Generator.x. A conference and exhibition on software and generative strategies in art and design.
• generative.net. A collaborative collection of artworks, research and experiments, with mailing list discussion.
• Playing with Time. A conversation between Will Wright and Brian Eno on generative creation.