Week 1

Today’s generative art

Sol LeWitt’s Paragraphs on Conceptual Art resonated most. There are some rules - of changing nature -, that while not prescriptive, can help guide the artist towards a finished form that will fulfill its purpose of transmitting an idea to whoever engages with it.

I’ve always struggled with what word to use to refer to a person who engages with my art.

• Viewer is too passive when the person should ideally walk away with some material internal change or reflection. Audience has the same issue.
• Consumer points to an utilitarian motif. Almost post-modernist in a way that
• Engaging resonates, but what’s the word?
• Participant isn’t always accurate and often refers to participatory art. Or an experience in which the person needs to provide
• Contributor: if they add value or content, but can be intimidating or create an obligation.

Other options include

• Node → in a networked/social system
• Carrier → especially interesting for your “knowledge charms” (someone who carries + transmits)
• Mediator → if they facilitate exchange between others
• Host → if they enable interaction spaces
• Touchpoint → poetic but less human-centered

Another important question: can we define the reasons why is matters?

• So we have a set of vocabulary to converse with each other.
• To value the works financially? So that there’s a healthy ecosystem around the production of art.

If we can define what we’re looking for in art. And in generative art versus other forms,

What makes a painting valuable?

What makes gold or diamonds variable?

Network effects = lots of units = now you become part of a community. New found appreciation for the art form itself. That art leads someone into a path of discovery and creativity. That’s what an artist can hope for.

Tyler Hobbs, [todo research, friend of Sofia’s & presumably artist?]. Code is the material of our time. Dictates traffic lights or phone lines.

Translating his ideas into code. Idea that automating aesthetics.

Time based art vs Computer Art vs Generative art

GALENTER’S PAPER

Galanter goes broader and defines generative art through the use of a system: "any art practice where the artist uses a system... which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art". For Galanter, the system—whether a computer program, a machine, or a set of natural language rules—is the defining element.

Boden and Edmonds

Define it through the locus of control: "the artwork is generated, at least in part, by some process that is not under the artist’s direct control". Their definition is broader in terms of the type of process (biological, psychological, or social), but more specific in its requirement that personal control be "deliberately diminished, or even wholly relinquished"

PARAGRAPHS ON CONCEPTUAL ART - Highlights

Sol LeWitt is concerned with Conceptual Art. It’s intuitive, based on simple ideas that seem inevitable. Ideas are discovered by intuition. Focusing on within.

“It has to look like something if it has physical form”. The work of art can only be perceived once completed.

Conceptual art doesn’t have much to do with math or elaborate systems. The viewers perception should not concern the creator.

The idea itself is as much a work of art as the finished piece. Conversations are included in this. Scale: if too small, it may be inconsequential.

Placement: placed in such a way that facilitates the understanding. Sol talks about negative space for designs as intervals.

art is not utilitarian. Should not go towards architecture. New materials are an affliction to some.

New materials should not be confused with new ideas. The physicality becomes a contradiction to its intent. Can be a deterrent to understanding. Any idea best stated in 2D should not be 3D.

“These ideas are representative of her thinking at this time, but may change”.