For the third assignment in Generative Content Creation, we looked at numerous examples of generative art. It was really amazing to see, what these artists have come up with. Generally simple ideas have been merged with other ideas in unpredictable ways and then could be manipulated again by the viewer.
The assignment involved applying the concepts and theories learned in previous posts on real generative art examples.
With the first assignment we looked into the field of multimedia and new media. Manovich (2001) brought out some good statements and observations in his article. The most intriguing for me was the part where he described how everything is being transformed into computer-mediated form. Every piece of information found on the Internet, be it images, videos, podcasts, music, text or animation, everything consists of ones and zeros. Therefore it could be easily manipulated and as a result made to something different.
The second assignment had us reading articles about generative art, to understand this term better and to get an overview of the background and theories of this type of art. According to Galanter (2003) generative art refers to any art practice where the artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art.
Although the system, which is used in the creation of generative art could be anything from natural language rules, a machine or other procedural invention, I guess the main emphasis at least in the light of this course is the computers involvement. As I described previously, all the information in the computers really consists of small particles and these of smaller particles etc, which could be manipulated, changed and altered in many different ways. If the systems and programs are created which use this data to create something new, attractive and interesting, then generative art is created.
Some interesting examples of generative art practices:
Jörg Pininger is a musician, poet and media artist. The application he created for iPhone is a mix of all of his talents. As described on his website the app "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" is a sound toy, a performance tool and an art work in its own right. "You can play with the letter-creatures and watch and listen how they interact with each other or use them to produce soundscapes like you would with an electronic musical instrument. "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" blends art, biology, fun and physics to create a unique, dynamic and interactive sound ecology" (joerg.piniger.net).
Pininger's application is a good example of generative art, as it has all the characteristics of generative art, complex systems and allows manipulation by the user. The user can choose how to interact with the application. Each order gives a feedback and results in new sound or visual pattern on the display. The sounds can be formed into generative music and the lines, created by the flying letter, could form a digital painting.
This is an iPhone application made to imitate the creation of Jackson Pollocks paintings. Jackson Pollock was mentioned in several articles which discussed the meaning of generative art. Galanter argued, whether Pollock could be called a generative artist or not, as his techniques of painting were rather random that systematized.
http://www.bestiario.org/research/flow/
This application represents the chronology of tagging process on wikipedia articles Santiago Ortiz and his team have been selecting for their research. This application uses the data available in the Internet and combines it into a visually attractive and informative systematic form. By moving the arrow over the graph, each sector lights up and the information about this research topic could be seen.
The second example from Ortiz also uses the data from the Internet. It is a tridimensional scheme, which represents the strength of relations between cities from searches on google. The user can turn the globe and look at the different cities, their coordinates and the results from Google. The methodology of the generation process is described as well.
http://bestiario.org/research/citydistances/
To conclude, the topic of generative media was new for me. It was interesting to see how the art, technology and information connect to each other and create amazing artwork. Some of the artworks and their intentions still remained a little vague for me but probably it takes time and practice to understand this topic a little better.
Galanter, Philip. 2003. What is generative art? Complexity theory as a context for art theory. In In GA2003–6th Generative Art Conference http://www.generativeart.com/on/cic/papersGA2003/a22.pdf.
Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Massassuchets: MIT Press. http://www.manovich.net/LNM/Manovich.pdf
