Generative Art

Robert SpahrDepartment of Cinema & Photography

Mass Communication & Media Arts

http://www.robertspahr.com/

What is Generative Art?

One definition could be....

Any art practice that incorporates instruction-based, mechanical, organic, computer-controlled, and/or other external, random, or semi-random processes and/or apparatuses directly into the creative process, which is then set to motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a work of art.

What is Generative Art?

One definition could be....

Any art practice that incorporates instruction-based, mechanical, organic, computer-controlled, and/or other external, random, or semi-random processes and/or apparatuses directly into the creative process, which is then set to motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a work of art.

What is Generative Art?

Any art practice that incorporates random processes set to motion with some degree of autonomy resulting in a work of art.

Five Historical Examples ofGenerative Art

Marcel Duchamp 1913

John Cage 1946

George Brecht 1959

Steve Reich 1968

Sol Lewitt 1970

Duchamp: 3 Standard Stoppages

"If a straight horizontal thread one meter long falls from a height of one meter onto a horizontal plane twisting as it pleases[it] creates a new image of the unit of length."

It questions what we presume to be absolute – a standard unit of measurement might be merely arbitrary.

3 Standard Stoppages by Marcel Duchamp, 1913-14

3 Standard Stoppages by Marcel Duchamp, 1913-14

John Cage Prepared Piano Score

Cage: Prepared Piano 1946-48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc3-C7Lnzh0

Brecht: Drip Music 1959

Drip Music

For single or multiple performance. Asource of dripping water and an emptyvessel are arranged so that the water fallsinto the vessel.

Brecht: Drip Music 1959

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT5lgaE-qZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6r3HDn6wFU

Reich: Pendulum Music 1968

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6r3HDn6wFU

Lewitt: Wall Drawings 1970

A Wall Divided Vertically into Fifteen Equal Parts, Each with a Different Line Direction and Color, and All Combinations 1970

Sol Lewitt

"In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work . . . all planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes the

machine that makes the art."

Sol LeWitt: "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," Artforum, summer issue, 1967

Software Based Examples of

Generative Art

Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, 1993http://www.jodi.org

Mark Napier, Shredder 1.0http://www.potatoland.org/shredder/

Olia Lialina, My Boyfriend Came Back From the Warhttp://www.teleportacia.org/war/

John F. Simon, Jr., Every Icon (1997)http://www.numeral.com/appletsoftware/eicon.html

Anne-Marie Schleiner, Velvet-Strike (2002)http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/

Keith Obadike, Blackness for Sale (2001)http://obadike.tripod.com/ebay.html

Shu Lea Cheang, Brandonhttp://brandon.guggenheim.org/bigdoll/

Marie Sester, ACCESS (2003)http://www.accessproject.net/access11.html

Caleb Larsen, A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter (2009)http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290498361874

Explorations and Questions

Exploring the use of chance and automation questions our assumptions about:

Originality Creativity Craft The role of the artist within the creative process

Selected Bibliography

Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 2002Noah Wardrip-Fruin (editor) New Media Reader, 2003Martha Buskirk, Contingent Object of Contemporary Art, 2003Rachel Greene, Internet Art, 2004Mark Tribe (Editor) New Media Art, 2006

Robert Spahrrspahr@siu.edu

http://www.robertspahr.com