Department of Cinema & Photography Mass … Art Robert Spahr Department of Cinema & Photography Mass...
Transcript of Department of Cinema & Photography Mass … Art Robert Spahr Department of Cinema & Photography Mass...
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 [email protected]
http://www.robertspahr.com