Demystifying Generative Art
Peter Bauman (Monk Antony) develops a framework for appreciating and analyzing generative art through an investigation of the movement’s locus of artistic intent. Read the full article at Le Random Editorials.
In the early 1960s, abstract geometric master François Morellet sought to use the tools of science to "demystify art [to] better understand it." He wanted to make art more accessible, opening it up for the public to share in its creation. Such a scientific approach to analyzing art has a long tradition in digital generative art, including Georg Nees and Max Bense's "Generative Aesthetics" (1965) as well as James Gips and George Stiny's Algorithmic Aesthetics (1978).
Eschewing this objective approach, this article seeks to begin a discussion about demystifying generative art not by breaking the subject down mathematically but by evaluating it thematically in the vein of art historical analysis. The formal, contextual and conceptual tools of art historical analysis, however, fall short when analyzing generative art due to the idiosyncrasies of the method: the central role of process and questions of artistic control. So what makes a work of generative art interesting or good? While making no attempt to answer that question, this article lays out the rationale for a framework that may enable readers to better discern this for themselves.
Systemists and Resultists
Because generative art requires an autonomous system to produce output, questions naturally arise as to where the artistic intent lies: the system or the potentially infinite variations it can generate? Analysis of generative art, therefore, typically begins with either the system or its results. The position that considers systems to be generative art’s primary medium of creative expression, I call “Systemists.” The position that considers outputs or results to be generative art’s primary medium of creative expression, I refer to as “Resultists.”
The Systemists
Systemists hold that system or process lies at the heart of analyzing and appreciating generative art, stressing that there is more to generative art than appearance. As far back as computer art’s beginnings, aesthetics have been viewed as secondary in some circles. Pioneering computer artist Hiroshi Kawano believed that “human standards of aesthetics are not applicable to computer art. Instead the works generated by a computer require from the artist (or critic) ‘a rigorous stoicism against beauty,’” according to author Frank Dietrich.
Pioneer, Herbert W. Franke, also believed in the supremacy of the system. He compared a generative system to a negative in photography in his book Computer Graphics, Computer Art (1985): “In photography, the true original [artwork] is a negative...It is the prototype for any number of multiplications.” Franke continues, “The computer advances this phase even further: the essential process of production occurs at the stage of programming.” In other words, according to Franke, as the negative is the original artwork in photography, so is the program the original in generative art.
In the 1980s, knowledge of programming no longer became a requirement for creating digital art. Following the advent of graphic design software like PageMaker (1985) and Illustrator (1987), continuing to personally program one’s art became a point of pride and distinction. This further solidified the program as the work of art; it was a way to distinguish proper programmed art from digital graphic design.
Artist Karsten Schmidt (Toxi) venerates the role of process four decades later in a Tweet thread from January 2022: “There’s more to generative aesthetics than appearance!” To Schmidt, analysis must begin with process: “Any serious critique should start w/ an examination of [techniques such as parametric, procedural and generative] to set an overall frame (for the critique), way before moving on to appearance topics.”
Toxi, C-SCAPE #181, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and owned by Le Random
Casey Reas, artist, UCLA professor and Processing co-founder, also holds the system in the highest regard. He told me in an interview:1
“I treat the system as the artwork.
Each output is an instance of that system; it's a representation of what the system is. It's something that can be enjoyed and appreciated.
For me, the primary work is that system that generates all those things."
For Reas the system is paramount rather than the code per se. “The code is not the art. The code is not it. The code is a way of articulating ideas but there's nothing interesting, special or unique about the code,” he explained to me. A fellow Systemist, artist Shunsuke Takawo, holds the code itself in higher regard. He responded in an interview on Right Click Save when asked which was more important, the code or visual outputs: “Because the visual outputs are the result of the execution of the code, viewers can understand the artist’s intent by reading that code. This is the most significant difference between generative art and other art forms. I write my code like a diary.”
Regardless of whether the code itself or the concept is key, Systemists believe that, like Reas told me, “the clear, well-defined system the artist makes is where the art lies.” Case closed. End of article. The system is the art.
The Resultists
Not so fast. Franke’s analogy of a photographic negative to a generative system is compelling. Yet a key difference is that a negative produces the same output each time while the stochastic nature of a generative system creates variability in each individual output....
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Continue reading at Le Random Editorials.
Peter Bauman (Monk Antony) is Le Random's Editor-in-Chief.
Special thanks to Ania Catherine, Zach Lieberman, Casey Reas and Dejha Ti for speaking with me.
Thank you to Mark Webster and Golan Levin for your feedback and input early on.
