Written by Ruby, 2021 Cohort
The concept of generative art refers to the type of art which is generated by the computer algorithm. Sometimes the process involved machine learning, artificial intelligence. Generative art as a by-product of the flourishing computational technology is not well accepted by the public or scholars. The general debate between the scholars is whether it should be considered as a type of art. Some may believe that art should be something man-made rather than generated by algorithm.
The concept of this kind of art is considered to be a form that originated from cognitive science and helps people understand the creative process. Most generation artists use mathematical model-based algorithms to program. The resulting artwork contains many fields, for instance, music, visual arts, performance, and robotics. Since the taxonomy of this kind of art is not settled down, the confusion and misuse of the concept are very common. Generative art and computer art are both being used to describe the idea of generative computer graphics in early history. “Generative” was then being used to describe the art that “produced from computer programs”(Boden & Edmonds, 2009, p. 23).
Generative music, the music produced by the computer system, actually came before generative visual art. After 1998, under the influence of Brian Eno, generative art has become a description of artwork in which computers were part of the decision-making. The artist believes that generating art requires a computer system that can make partial decisions, not a procedural algorithm. The step-by-step algorithm limits the free creation of the system. They claim that “rule-driven systems appear to have a greater degree of autonomy, relative to the conscious decisions of the human artist” (p. 24).
Computers are often thought of as the opposite of art. Because computer programming was often coded to follow certain logic in the early stages. And this way of following a step-by-step rule is contrary to the creativity of art. However, with the development of science and technology, a system with learning ability and autonomy has emerged. It is this autonomy that makes computers have the ability to create art. The reason why computers participate in some of the decision-making is that computers with full autonomy are not necessarily making art. This is because the artistry of work is judged by human beings. A work without human participation in making (a rule-setter) does not necessarily conform to human aesthetics, but its aesthetic results must be accidental. Human participation in the development of rules is a way to help machines “ understand” aesthetics and style.
Since the continuous advancement of technology, artists have been exploring the use of computers to create art in a variety of fields, not only music, visual art but also in the fields of poetry, film, dance and other fields to explore the art of generation. In addition to the earlier work Aaron (1968) by Harold Cohen, which can imitate a style, there are artworks that can be improvised called Continuator (2002) by François Pachet. In poetry, in addition to stitching existing text together, new text can be generated from the text corpus.
Reference
Borden, M. A., & Edmonds, E. A. (2009). What is generative art? Retrieved from https://