Leave No Trace » Generative art

“…the slow application of decisive marks…”

Alec — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:49:21 +0000

For a long time, people have tried to use computers to create ‘life-like’ images, and for a while there was a trend harking back to basic 8-bit computer graphics and sounds. Here, however, is the opposite: an artist hand-crafting computer-like images.

Yes, it may not be directly relevant to this blog, but I’ve been reading a lot lately about generative art and Voronoi diagrams and felt overwhelmed by the maths, so it’s refreshing to see a different, non-technical approach.

Talkin’ ’bout my g-g-g-eneration – R Daltrey

Alec — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:07:37 +0000

Zenbullets suggests that the difference between generative art and math art is that the former is unpredictable. I would suggest that a further difference is that math ‘art’ is sterile. Yes, that’s a perjorative term, and one that’s subjective and emotive rather than rational, but there’s a clinical neatness about some images that renders them self-sufficient and cold.

Collaborations

bitjam — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:35:15 +0000

Hello it’s Carl from the bITjAM, the Leave No Trace project is a fantastic idea and opens up so many possibilities. Over the last 3 years we have seen great many new and aspiring digital artists around the area and there’s hope that we can develop more useful collaborations (especially in a live performance space) during the lead up to this project.

Generative art

Alec — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:01:47 +0000

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been gathering some links to various articles that have caught my eye and that may or may not be relevant to this blog. There’s an article on The Guardian’s website that introduces some elementary examples of digital art practices, then raises some interesting questions but frustratingly doesn’t even start to discuss them.

With painters and photographers we more or less know the provenance. But who should get the credit for art produced by algorithms or random means? The software program, the programmer, the computer or the person who pressed the button to start the program, or whoever had the original idea? Does the fact that you can endlessly change what you paint with Brushes make it any less a work of art than a traditional painting, which may have had lots of layers added before the artist was satisfied? Maybe, as Oscar Wilde said, art never expresses anything but itself.

I realise that this article was written for the printed version of the newspaper, but it’s crying out for links to examples of the art being discussed. How about the Gallery of Complexification? Is generative art like this really art? Or is it just pretty pictures? Brian Eno, talented all-rounder that he is, is a hero of mine, but I’m sure he wouldn’t describe himself as a Fine Artist. What does that mean for his 77 million paintings? Does there have to be a concept behind the work, like Aaron Koblins’s Flight Patterns?