Why Love Generative Art?

- It is very difficult to value. One can’t see at a glance whether it took time or skill to create. And similar to other types of art that involve mechanical reproduction, e.g. photography, generative art can be produced on demand, it’s not irreplaceable like a sculpture or painting is.

- It usually lacks a good story. Getting attention in the art world may depend more on the artist’s narrative than on the art itself, and many art consumers will similarly buy when the story is right, and avoid art they love when it has a bad or boring story. I think people legitimately and reasonably need to be able to have something interesting to say when their friends comment on the artwork in their house.

I say this as a generative artist and absolute generative art lover myself. I explored what it might take to make a living from generative art for a year, and I’ve met a lot of people who hate all things digital, as well as a lot of people who get what I do and love it. The thing is, the people who hate it or don’t get it have a point.

> Myth Two: The artist has zero control and the autonomous machine is randomly generating the designs. The computer is making the art and the human deserves no credit, as it is not really art.

This one I’ve run into a lot. People who don’t think I deserve full credit, or just don’t know how to assign or think about credit.

> Myth One: The artist has complete control and the code is always executed exactly as written. Therefore, generative art lacks the elements of chance, accident, discovery, and spontaneity that often makes art great, if not at least human and approachable.

This one I haven’t seen much of, and I’d question whether it’s a common myth. But, more importantly, I cringe at the idea that randomness leads to discovery or spontaneity or human approachableness. I would never compare randomness to surprises or creativity in traditional art, but that idea is fairly pervasive among generative art initiates. I use randomness a lot, but randomness is very boring. It’s mechanical variety without surprise, randomness rarely leads to surprise without a lot of generative creativity on the part of the artist.

I don't get a lot out of the art side, but I have always been fascinated by this particular topic. Where little pieces of code, depending on some inputs, can generate some really fun output.

Those are problems, but I think you're accidentally digging backwards to find them. If you want to make a living in art, selling to collectors and galleries, it's really not about pragmatic economic concerns like these. It's about having a community of patrons and collectors who can't help but talk about and trade the work at galleries and dinner parties.

As that catches, people will inevitably surface the "good stories" and the reproduction of work will be managed in some way.

That hasn't happened in a way that's been explosive yet. Once a few superstars wow the right people and see their work anchor major gallery collections, there'll be a lot more room for smaller artists.

Personally, I wouldn't overthink the reasons why. Codifying them as "main problems" might just leave you missing opportunity when the winds change.

This field is still in its infancy - I'm excited for the future.

I wrote a generative art algorithm a bit ago - check it out :D - https://anemy.github.io/concentric/#/