GENUM

Generative art: an attempt to outline the defining framework

The extent of the concept of generative art is immense, being impossible to contemplate on it only within the limits of fine arts. What needs to be taken into consideration are various tendencies across the world of art, such as electronic music and algorithmic composition, computer graphics and animation, VJing, and obviously a specific conception of design and architecture, as well.

Making use of generative principles or randomness in fine arts may be captured in the creation of artists virtually in the whole course of the twentieth century, yet formally, it tends to be associated with the development of information technology. Marcel Duchamp, William Borroughs, and John Cage belong among the most prominent representatives. Despite the fact that their common creative framework falls within conceptualism or minimalism, Carl André, Sol Lewitt, Hans Haacke, Mel Bochner, or Paul Morgenson, show unquestionable aspects of generative processes in their work, as well.

For instance, Ellsworth Kelly is much deeper in the field of generative art, using the principle of randomness in his paintings. Herold Cohen is behind the invention of artificial intelligence creating his works. Scott Draves and Karl Sims make use of evolution models to generate visual works. Ken Rinaldo created viewer-responding robotic music objects. Joseph Nechvatal came up with examining models of virus recognition. And there are others.

What is in fact generative art and how could it be marked out and defined?

It is common practice of art history and theory to catalogue and categorise specific artistic expressions into generalising concepts by means of definitions or lists of rules that a certain work of art must fulfil. Unfortunately, such practice is short-sighted to a large extent, limiting to a creative mind, and binding in a frequently unwanted manner. It could be said that an art student or a debuting artist is directly a victim of art historical imposition of connections and relationships between individual defining frameworks, thus becoming, in their form, an instruction for bad artists and a noose for good ones. Even though the trivial pair of “good” and “bad” sounds empty, it may provide evidence of the mere simplicity with which young artistic creation is often condemned only on the basis of disconnecting with the linear, yet multi-layer, line of history or art. It is necessary to maintain an awareness of the context, yet becoming its simple minion is definitely not the way to perform artistic creation. Creative minds are thus often unconsciously closed to predetermined limits. A creator-doer, however, receives instructions how to operate relatively successfully in the scene, despite their unacknowledged shortcomings.

Reflexive historical classification of artistic styles has its logic in relation to common historiography, but not through a perspective of creative thinking that takes into account the broad context. It is necessary to record and compare information on the so-called development of art. This is required in the tradition of perception of time in the Western world, and while questions on credibility and authenticity of such interpretations are only raised by a minimum number of voices.

On the other hand, classifying current “styles” or streams of individual creative tendencies of the contemporary art lacks any substantiation in general. It is a kind of mere theoretical preparation for backward historiographical assessment, which however loses, from the very beginning, the foundation on which it should be developed further due to the absence of distance.

The problem often lies in close relations of artistic communities within the broader art world which – apart from the author, provides space to live to curators, theoreticians, and involved public. In such a narrowed framework, the loss of overview for broader perception of context becomes obvious, and therefore any attempts to make definitions lose their possibility to actually explain anything.

The theoretician / historian of art thinks on the basis of considering the work of a certain group of artists whose work he perceives a relevant for the given framework. Furthermore, according to the obtained characteristics of the narrowest selection, he broadens his scope of competence only to confirm his earlier statements. The theoretician / artists then defines himself through his own work and the work of related authors. This results in a stalemate.

Defining a specific artistic movement by means of the concept of generative art implies an indisputable charm of ease, while also depriving self-contained artists with the possibility to be anyone and anything else. Many of them do not protest. As mentioned earlier, there may be a problem on the level of an unconscious acceptance of categorisation.

Just to give you an idea, this is one of most prominent definitions available on the Internet: Generative art refers to any art practice where the artist creates a process, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is then set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art.

(Philip Galanter, http://philipgalanter.com/about/)

The afore-mentioned framework attempt to be sufficiently integrating to such an extent to cover all the possible empty and blind spots and to carve out a distinct three-dimensional contour out of the reality of artistic practice, i.e. a certain mask that can be placed on any artistic endeavour claiming to be included in it. It also helps itself by not defining art on its own but also the process of its possible creation. However, it does not establish a transparent space, an adaptable place for life, but a deadening whole with a historicist ambition.

In this perspective, it ceases to be a question what generative art is and how to characterise it as well as possible. What becomes important are reflections of the fact why we should at all talk about generative art as its abstract construction associating inconsistent and distinctive expressions of human mind and spirit.

Yet we need definitions to succeed in the environment of the rationalised material world. However, hey often help neither art, nor artists. Yet attempting to provide definitions, and this cannot be denied anyway, is an excellent intellectual exercise, a game in which, upon accepting the rules, we are able to play an impressive round of meanings. Thinking for thinking. A kind of a fitness centre for the mind.

Searching obviously serve as an alternative to the synthetic approach of definitions. The possibilities of the web, the field, or the network, often so close to the practice of artists associated with the concept of generative art, are enormously close to the actual, not only seeming, way to find answers to specific questions concerning, for example, generative art. In general, it may be said that searching for the desired key word through Google (or any other preferred search engine) functions as an entrance to a well-branched system of possibilities and variations of information under the conscious activation of own mind, transferable into knowledge. Besides, this provides an answer to the question whether the Internet and its width does not overwhelm our mind. Under no circumstances is this possible, since a mere cluster of information, generated by the search engine in the given order, does not offer much benefit on its own. It is a mere list, enumeration or database without the explanatory key. The key then remains a personal possession of exclusively human capacity of interpretation. Anyways, like the possibility to get lost in the abundance of data.

The parallel between searching information on the Internet and the mediated genesis of art on the basis of assigned prerequisites is obvious. Both work on a similar principle, yet the output mechanisms are (or may be) different. An automatic system of searching for texts concerning a specific topic, i.e. generative art, functions as a synthesis of both, being the work of art and at the sate time, a possibility of its explanation in a broader context of an art set.