Lecture 02: Generativity

Contemporary Generative art

Some examples to get started.

Here’s a sculpture, NODE10 3931 by John Powers:

How was this made?

Let’s have a look at formalist generative artworks:

The Flickr archive of Marius Watz
Projects by Casey Reas (Infinite Command Team, MicroImage), co-creator of Processing

Generative works need not be strictly formalist experiments in geometry or abstraction. Some generative works allude directly to figuration, eating, sex, death.

Moka, Munching.
Moka, Weird Faces.
Moka, Mechanical Parts.
Jason Salavon, Form Study #1 (2004)
Jason Salavon, Still Life (2005) & Glassware (2007)
Jason Salavon, Vanitas (2009)

Today’s presentation is about strategies for, and examples of, computationally generative art and design. Here are some examples generating graphic (virtual) images:

Substrate (2003, Jared Tarbell) [Javascript version]
Nokia Friends (2009, Toxi + Universal Everything)
Furry & Furry’s Posse & Walking City (Matt Pyke)
Forms (2012, Quayola + Memo Akten)
Communion and 10000 Paintings (2011, Field.io)

Field.io Creatures, using Genetic Algorithms:
Written Images (2011, d_effekt) Written Images book:
Written Images, preview & testprint:
Nervous System: https://vimeo.com/nervoussystem (& CellCycle)