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GENERATIVE ART
• Generative art overlaps substantially with systems art.
• There are several definitions of generative art.
• I will highlight two definitions today, but there are other possibilities.
Generative art (1)
The artist designs or uses a system, “which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art.”
Peter Galanter
http://www.philipgalanter.com/downloads/ga2003_paper.pdf
“Generative art” is not the same as “rule‐based art”
• The system is usually a system of rules, for instance mathematical rules.
• But the system can also be a physical system, such as ferrofluid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYUVjDgLp7I
• The system must be independent enough to take over substantial aspects of the creative process from the artist.– From this p.o.v., not all rule‐based art is generative and some generative art is not interactive.
One possible technique uses an integer sequence: an ordered list of whole numbers.
– For instance, the Fibonacci sequence:
Mario Merz often used the Fibonacci series to organize works.
Key decisions are now imposed by the rule system.
• Mario Merz (who belonged to a group called Arte Povera) made a sequence of photographs showing a dining hall with more and more people in each photograph.
• The number of people is determined by the successive terms of the Fibonacci sequence.
• Many artistic decisions are then made automatically by means of the Fibonacci sequence.
• The artist does not need to decide (e.g.) the number of people in each photograph.
• The number is determined by the mathematical system.
Generative art (2)
• Another definition:
• A work of generative art is one where: – There is a distinction between the surface structure and the deep structure.
– The artist’s interest is mainly devoted to the creation of the deep structure and its relation to the surface structure.
• What is a deep structure?
Consider an example from linguistics
[S [NP [A nice] [N dogs]] [VP [V like] [NP [N cats]]]]
KEY IDEA The structure of a sentence can be accurately represented as a hierarchical tree.A hierarchical tree is a graph without cycles and with a root at the top.
This system of rules is the deep structure of the language.
Every sentence that is produced according to these rules belongs to the surface structure of the language.
An artist working in generative art often spends a great deal of time on the production of a deep structure.
• Deep structures can be used to generate works of visual art. • We can think of images as akin to “sentences” generated by
certain rules of grammar. – Example: Marius Watz.
• The deep structure is the system of rules that is used to create works of art (objects, performances, processes).
• The surface structure is the organization of those works.
• The artist focuses on the deep structure. • The audience perceives the surface structure.
• In many cases, the deep structure generates surface structures in an autonomous way, with minimal artistic control.
• So this second definition overlaps with the first definition.
A well‐known work that is generative
Queneau created a system that can automatically generate poems.
• Queneau’s work allows one to produce a very large number of poems automatically.
• It is important to design a system of rules that can be used to produce a large number of works.
• A music box that can only play one tune is not generative!
• An artist can create a diagram that determines many possible structures.
• It is then possible to let the system determine the choices automatically.
• Chamboula by Paul Fournel
• The artist give ssome autonomy(independence) to the system.
• The system can “run” by itself, without the artist’s own intervention.
• The artist does not have to make aesthetic decisions in every step of the execution.
The rules can be executed automatically (i.e., by a computer, a robot, or a person who does not need to make creative decisions).
Example: Desmond Paul Henry,Drawing Machine 2.
Casey Reas
Jean Tinguely, Metamatics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOo5uq2fH6g
The rules can also produce sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0rVxhYFlwM
Pen plotter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_pwzqPk6Gg
“My art developed into an algorithmic art, in which inventing rules, or algorithms, is the foundation of my research.”
Manfred Mohr
John Whitney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrKgyY5aDvA
Instruction art
The artist designs instructions (software) for others to perform.
Not all instruction art is generative: such art is generative only if the result is the product of a relatively autonomous system.
Example: Sol Lewitt
Wall Drawings 63 and 85.
63. A Wall is divided into four horizontal parts. In the top row are four equal divisions, each with lines in a different direction. In the second row, six double combinations; in the third row, four triple combinations; in the bottom row, all four combinations superimposed.
85. Same as 63, but with four colors.
• It is not necessary that the rules must be executed mechanically by someone or something other than the artist (a computer, robot, or person).
• What is important is that the rules could in theory be mechanically executed, even if the artist her/himself has executed them.
• The artist chooses or designs a system of rules (or a rule‐like system) that can run autonomously, and then gives up control over the final outcome to that system.
• Generative Art is not necessarily computer‐based.
• Parametric visual art
Sol LeWitt
Exhausting all the possibilities of a system of combinations.
LeWitt
Asymmetric Composition With 3 Partitions
Asymmetric Composition With 7 Partitions
Asymmetric Composition With 8 Partitions
Symmetric Composition With 4 Partitions
Edward Zajec
Many authors, however, use the terms “generative art” and “computer art” as if they were synonyms:
“The terms "generative art" and "computer art" have been used in tandem, and more or less interchangeably, since the very earliest days.”
Boden and Edmonds What is Generative Art?, Digital Creativity 20(1/2): 21‐46.
Example of a definition that stresses the computer element:
Generative art is “produced by the activation of a set of rules” such that “the artist lets a computer system take over at least some of the decision‐making (although, of course, the artist determines the rules).”
Boden and Edmonds http://research.it.uts.edu.au/creative/eae/intart/pdfs/generative‐art.pdf
The computer is not essential to generate art, but it can be very helpful.
Many types of generative art cannot be executed without collaborating with a computer, but:
The computer can generate “a greater number of alternatives more rapidly and efficiently” and so give “hundreds of variations on a form”.
Charles Csuri
• Generative art is not necessarily computer‐based.
• Generative art is (to a smaller or greater extent) mechanical: – The artist could in theory delegate the process of making it, in whole or in part, to a computer, mechanical device, or another person.
• Generative art is often emergent: – The execution of simple rules produces a complex and often unpredictable outcome.
Generative art is concerned with the creative power of rules.
It concerns the possibilities that arise from the invention of rule systems.
• Most generative art uses rules whose execution is to a large extent unpredictable.
The outcome is often unpredictable:
Even if the artist knows the rules and understands how they are executed, s/he could have not foreseen the outcome.
Usually the rules are relatively simple while the outcome is highly complex.
The artist designs a process and then loses control over it!!!!!!!!
Generative art as emergent process
We will discuss the concept of “emergence” in more detail later in this course. Here is a short introduction.
An emergent process consists of:
A system of relatively simple rules…
..whose execution takes on a life of its own, not fully controlled by the designer, and...
...generates complex outcomes....
...that could not have been predicted even by the people who designed the rules.
• Generative art is normally inter‐ or trans‐disciplinary. – The rules are often designed using concepts or methods from: mathematics, computer science, computational linguistics, physics, etc.
Architectural structures created using mathematical techniques by pierre forissier
• The rules employed by artists sometimes include a random element.
• Randomness is possible, but not essential to Generate Art.
Very simple example of randomness
Step one: assign one number to each of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale.
Source of this example: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/s/spobooks/bbv9810.0001.001/1:5/‐‐algorithmic‐composition‐a‐gentle‐introduction‐to‐music?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
• Step two: Use a random number generator to produce a list of numbers between 1 and 12. – Suppose you get the numbers 2, 5, 3, 9, 3, 12.
• Step three: Choose tones and arrange them into a sequence based on the numbers obtained in step two.
• The previous example is very simple. • Greek composer Iannis Xennakis used methods from the theory of probabilitiesand other areas of mathematics. – He borrowed techniques from scientific disciplines that employ probabilities, such the kinetic theory of gases (physics).
• Xennakis uses random methods, but the randomness is constrained by probabilities that the composer assigns to different possible events.
• Composing with randomness and probabilities is called stochastic music.
http://rateyourmusic.com/genre/Stochastic+Music/
• Xennakis believed the use of probabilities can produce a richer experience of sound.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZazYFchLRI
• The result is typically a slowly changing mass of sound.
• A well‐known example is the composition Metastasis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZazYFchLRI
• Some artists create deep structures that leave many choices open for others to create surface structures.
• An example is the deck of cards Life in the Garden created by Eric Zimmerman and Nancy Nowacek.
• This approach to generative art affords interactivity.
• While a lot of it is not interactive, generative art is not incompatible with interactivity.
COMPLEXITY• Complexity is one of the
key topics in generative art.
• Should art be highly complex or not?
• There are many different conceptions of complexity.
• Let us focus on one version, borrowed from mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov.
COMPLEXITY
• Complexity measures the degree to which an object (for instance a digital image or audio file) can be compressed (without loss).
An image that is strongly patterned can be highly compressed and so its complexity is low.
.
Paintings by Donald Judd.
– A truly random object is highly complex, in this sense.
– It cannot be compressed.
• Many images and other artworks are somewhere in the middle between extreme unpredictability and repetitiveness.
• One of the main questions for generative artists concerns complexity.
• There are many different views on whether art should have high or low complexity.
• Some artists and scholars believe that generative art should be neither too complex nor too ordered.
• Other artists and scholars call for “low‐complexity art”.
• Such art has no parts or very few (and highly repeated) parts.
• Another word for “low‐complexity art” is “Minimalism”.
• Art by Donald Judd
Low Complexity art by Barnett Newman.
Very Low Complexity:
Yves Klein
FOR FURTHER STUDY• Mathematician George D. Birkhoff defined an aesthetic measure
M as follows:
M = Order / Complexity
• Some scholars use related notions of “entropy” to describe the absence of order.
http://ima.udg.edu/~rigau/Publications/Rigau07B.pdf
• Article on “low‐complexity art” from the Leonardo journal:
http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/locoart/locoart.html
CONCLUSIONS
• Definition 1: – The artist creates or selects a system that is autonomously set into operation.
– The artist surrenders control over some decisions to this system.
• Definition 2: – The artist thinks of the work in terms of a distinction between surface structure and deep structure.
– The creative process focuses only, or to a large extent, on the choice or creation of a deep structure.