Art by machine

Todays post is: about a creative genre called "Generative Art", which - in the foofy right-brain tradition of ArtSpeak ("can't be labelled; words too restrictive; blah blah blah") - translates roughly as "art created by use of non-human autonomous systems" (wiki is HERE). Right now it generally means that a computer is one of the tools. Actually, as I argue below, the term isn't really very clear-cut at all. Maybe ArtSpeak ain't really so foofy? You can decide when you're done reading this posting.

The art can be music, literature or architecture design; it can also be "interactive" art (like the environmental pieces I wrote about earlier - read it HERE). It can even be sculpted in 3D form like these:

Generative Sculpture by Tom Beddard
(original image from butdoesitfloat.com HERE)

by Eva Schindlin - original image from butdoesitfloat.com HERE)
(Eva's process is described HERE)

In fact, it can actually be physically produced by a machine, using the recently-emerged plastic extrusion technology called "3D printing" (see: Empire State Building time lapse on YouTube).

The meaning I'm using here, though, is: 2D visual art. The person in this field I find REALLY interesting right now is a photographer named Jason Salavon; he presents large scale images (and some video pieces) generated pixel-by-pixel by computer software that processes large bodies of data and presents it in visual form. Some of the cooler examples are:

Emblem: Apocalypse Now (2004)
Digital C-Print by Jason Salavon
(original image HERE)
[the film was sampled frame-by-frame; results printed in concentric circles]

and:

from: Every Playboy Centerfold: The Decades (normalized) - 2002
Digital C-prints by Jason Salavon
(original image HERE)
[every Playboy centerfold was mean-averaged pixel-by-pixel;
results summarized and printed for each decade, 1960-1999]

I find the digital techniques used in this work to be interesting as well; I guess that makes it "conceptual art" since the ideas behind these artists' methods are very important, and they also relate to my experience of the actual image. They're beautiful, AND they make me think about a bigger idea while I'm viewing them.

What this all brings up for me is: how much "non-human intervention" is required before we can call the final result "Generative Art"? You and I use VERY sopisticated computer technology every time we snap a cellphone photo or point a digital camera at a kid blowing out birthday candles. Believe me, there's WAAAYYY more computing power at work than just a light-sensing chip that records how much light is hitting it.

Before the shutter ever clicks, at a minimum: some software measures the light, averages it across the frame, finds contrasty edges or faces (yes, it knows what a "face" looks like in pixels) on which to focus the lens, balances the color data to match the scene's lighting, decides how much data it'll have to record, picks a place to store the data, and reboots everything before you click the shutter again. If that ain't "computer technology" at work, nothing is. And, of course, producing the image after it's stored takes another whole bunch of processing power. PhotoShop? Making a print? Uploading it to Flickr or Facebook or a website? HuMONgous computer power at work.

So, how can anyone draw the line on what's "Generative Art" and what isn't? You tell ME. I just like to throw rocks and make people think a bit. Hopefully, that gets us both out of the 24-hour-newscycle brain numbness for a while.

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Today's creation is: these images of a couple of rocks I've carried around with me for a few weeks. I recently used them in an 11-day meditation process and they've brought up some useful insights for me.

Citrine and Pipestone
(photo © me)

Citrine and Pipestone - detail
(photo © me)

They also spurred me to get moving (FINALLY!) on a photo series about Transcendant Objects; physical objects that people use to connect with Spirit, or the Divine, or whatever larger world there may be beyond our physical plane. Minerals/crystals are one set; objects of worship (e.g., the Sacred Pipe used in Native American ceremonies) another; literary devices (e.g., a Bible, the Torah, stone tablets) yet another. Anyway, the textures of these rocks seems important, so I took these photos as studies for an acrylic painting, probably mixing in mediums like sand, fiber and gel with the paints, to let me use textures as well as colors and shapes. I'll post more as this stuff comes out.

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[SideNote]:

I quit Blogging for a while, mostly because I got bummed out that the pageviews were dropping way off. Basically, after my first few weeks, almost NOBODY was reading this blog. I got discouraged.To say the least. And I quit.

The need to start up again has come up for me three times in the last 24 hours. The first one was a good friend (he's by FAR the most action-biased person I know) who eMailed me to say "DO IT TODAY!" He's a mentor and pest of the best possible kind for me. Thanks, Jay.

The second was an article by Neil Patel I read on the web this morning ("12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Posting Every Time") that says: it takes about TWO YEARS for a blogger to get found on the web, and one sure way to kill your blog off completely is to give up and QUIT POSTING on it. Like I had done. Okay - that's two.

The third was another good friend (thanks, Greg - I really appreciated it) who called this morning and basically said "Hey! I check your blog every morning, and you've been off the air for almost TWO MONTHS! What's UP with THAT?" Message received.

I think it's some Buddhist tradition that if something comes up for you three times you'd better listen, because the Universe is trying to get your attention. Also, in my experience, those unheeded messages get louder and louder until you hear 'em - and I never like how loud they get after I ignore them. So here I am.