1:0 Generative Art
There's a rich history of Generative Art, it begins before the advent of computers. This article on Artnome documents this well:
https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/8/8/why-love-generative-art
Lets have a look at a few influencial practitioners...
Vera Molnár
Vera Molnár was a pioneer of computer and generative art.
"In the 1960s, she began implementing simple algorithmic programmes by hand, a method referred to as her 'machine imaginaire'... In 1968, Molnár first gained access to a computer in a Sorbonne research lab... Using a language of 0s and 1s, she could feed instructions into the computer, which were then outputted to a plotter that produced line drawings with a moving pen."
(https://ropac.net/artists/231-vera-molnar/)
Molnár's influence on the contemporary world of creative computing is huge, she worked on art and code till her death in 2023 aged 99.
Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt pioneered conceptual art. His artworks were sets of text instructions that were often performed by others, leaving space for interpretation, chance, randomness.
LeWitt is regarded as a founder of both conceptual and minimal art. He created instructions and often let others create the work itself, following those instructions. The instructions often allowed space for chance and interpretation to affect the work making each creation unique.
Malevitch and Gorilla Sun
Gorilla Sun (Ahmad Moussa) is a generative artist who creates digital work and writes about his process. There is a fantastic article about his interpretations of Malevitch’s artwork, the making of Neo Supremus:
MIT Media Lab
https://www.fastcompany.com/1663378/mit-media-labs-brilliant-new-logo-has-40000-permutations-video
MIT has a new logo these days - which is also great, but the generative logo started with the top image.It then went onto the second with a similar grid system: https://www.pentagram.com/work/mit-media-lab
John Baldessari
John Baldessari went through many different stages in his career, drastically changing the style of his art each time. He often employed systems to make work.
Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts)a great example of Baldessari using a simple system and photography to generate his art. is a great example of Baldessari using a simple system and photography to generate his art.
Ryoji Ikeda
Ikeda is a visual artist who creates large scale installations integrating graphic systems and sound.
Matt Deslauriers
In this work data is extracted from the 12th International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF), a mathematical model that can predict magnetic inclination up to the year 2020. A custom algorithm maps the data into spherical isolines and sends the paths to a mechanical pen plotter.
