generative art & literature generative...
TRANSCRIPT
GENERATIVE ART & LITERATURE
Generative Thinking in Contemporary Art & Creative Writing
Dr. Linda C.H. LAI
Computational Thinking in existing art forms
I.
What is Generative Art?
Generative Art - impulses
Chance? Automatism?
Is there a method that would enable us to compose an infinite number of pieces of music?
Is it possible that a visual art piece can be understood as pure structure?
Rule-drivenness… / rule-based creativityProcess-oriented / proceduralism / AlgorithmsSeries formation
Trans-genre
Generative Art
Self multiplicationSelf organization
Single unit complex systemSimplicity complexity
Rule applicationCombinatorial / permutation / algorithm / emergence
Generative Art
Concern for…
New methods of composition…Methods that allow a work to grow in scope and
abundance
Bridget Riley
High Sky 2 (1992)
(1978)
Joseph AlbersHomage to Square series (1950)
Frank Stella
“Protractor Series”(93 paintings based on 31 canvas formats each
with 3 compositional types)
Jennifer Bartlett
Rhapsody (1975-76)
Generative Art: an initial case for review
Gego (German born female artist residing in Venezuela)
Lines …planes …objects …environment
Triangles… Squares… Spheres
Triangles into netsTriangles forming circular planesTriangles into cylinders and tubular structuresTriangles forming spheresSquares into sheetsSquares into netsSquare as frames…
Generative Art: an initial case for review
Gego (German born female artist residing in Venezuela)
Anti-sculpture…
“I still dislike the word ‘sculpture’. They are not sculptures.” (referring to her works)
Dictionary definitions, she pointed out, describe sculpture as any assembled objects.She felt such a definition does not sufficiently cover her works – mainly jointed pieces
and structures.Her intention was not only form and volume, but transparent structure.***She emphasizes she never made sketches of her work…
http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2220/ppt_topical/Gego/Macba_Dec30_GegoDocu1.AVI
Generative Art: an initial case for review
Bernd & Hilla Becher
Generative thinking in field photography
Four decades:
photographing and classifying the industrial structures that are even now vanishing from the modern landscape...
Bernd & Hilla Becher (Germany)
Generative thinking in field photography:a way to discover our living environment
Blast Furnaces_1982
Coal Triple_1975
Gasbehaelter in Lens_1970
Grain Elevators_1978
Grain Elevators_2003
Industrial Facade_1978
Industrial Facade_1984_94
Industrial Facade_1991
Lime Kilns_1963
Lime Kilns_1963a
Lime Kilns_1968
Timbered Houses_1973
Traditional Houses_1993
Typology II_1970
Untitled_1995
Water Tower_1963
Water Towers_1972_98
Water Towers_1973
Water Towers_1978
Water Towers_1980
Winding Tower_1966
Winding Tower_1967
Winding Tower_1967a
Winding Towers_1967_83
More Generative Visual Arts: work examples
Generative Visual Arts: work examples
Dorothea Rockburne:
(5) “Set” (1970) – inspiration from Mathematics(6) “Radiant and Fields” (1971) – concept of units
becoming more complex X(7) “Drawing That Makes Itself” (1973) XJennifer Bartlett:(8) “Rhapsody” (1975-76)
Dorothea Rockburne
“Set” (1970) – inspiration from Mathematics
Generative Visual Arts: work examples
Doug Huebler:
(9) “Duration Piece No. 6” (NY, 4/1969) – photo series X
(10) “Location Piece No. 6” (1970) X(11) “Duration Piece No. 7”(12) “Location Pieces No. 7”
“Location Piece no. 7”
Doug Huebler
“Duration Piece no. 4”
Generative Visual Arts: work examples
Sonia Sheridan:
(13) mono-prints series based on one image (1963-64)(14) “Unwind the Wheel of Time” (1979) – eight
drawings X
What is Generative Art?
Generative Art performs the idea as process.
What is Generative Art?
Generative Art performs the idea as process.
Rules as constraint produce a somewhat automatic process.
Rules are used to ensure the next possible step forward.
GA begs the question of what’s possible & what is virtual
What is Generative Art?
Generative Art performs the idea as process.Rules as constraint produce a somewhat automatic process.Rules are used to ensure the next possible step forward.
The intricacies of a GA work often lie in the rational relation between each two steps + the leaps-and-bounds differences at the end of a sequence of operations.
Generative Art?
To generate = to produce, to bring into existence, to bring forward, to present to view or notice…
Generative = capable of producingGenerative procedural, serialist
Generative Visual Arts
TWO kinds of generative systems in 20th-C art history (Diane Kirkpatrick):
Close generative systems:[e.g. conceptual art] in each work a closed analytic structure is set up
which becomes a generator for exploration
Generative Visual ArtsTWO kinds of generative systems in 20th-C art
history (Diane Kirkpatrick):(2) Organic generative systems:
A work begins with creating one word or idea and uses that to generate the next, and the next and so on…(creating generators)
I.
Beyond conceptual art and representation
Problem solving => art-making
One and Three ChairsJoseph Kosuth / 1965
Problem solving => art-making
One and Five Chairs- - - - - - - - - - / 2010
One and Five Clocks (Kosuth, 1965)
COMPUTATIONAL THINKING
Re-creating Mondrian
Analysis of a painting by Piet Mondrian
What questions we often ask about a painting do not apply to this situation?
What new, production questions are relevant?
Re-creating Mondrian
Imagine we are asking someone to make an exact copy of the above painting by telling the person exactly what to do step by step ...
What steps would you lay down for someone to reproduce many different Mondrian-like paintings?
Collective improvisation
Turning a painting into a generator...Exploring the generative potentials of a painting via the use of rules...
The rule:Ask questions about this painting,
apply divergent thinking, exhaust all the possible questions you can think of...
EXERCISEGenerative drawings:Make 5 drawings, each containing:
a circlea stick-man
a treea square
Record the rules you've used and developed