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Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

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Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#61

Post by superhuzza »

hodwic wrote: post #56
d--b wrote: post #51

One has to remember that "generative art" only characterizes techniques for generating pictures. Art itself is about what the picture makes people feel, or what they have to say. Just making pictures for the only purpose of being "beautiful" is fine, just not very artful...

> Just making pictures for the only purpose of being "beautiful" is fine, just not very artful... Beauty is the goal of art. If his works don't resonate as well as a Nikolay Dubovskoy or a Cy Twombly, or any other human artist, it's in beauty that he fails. I find that generally this confusion around "beauty" comes from using a popular but non-standard definition of beauty. Beauty has meant, since the ancient Greeks…

I feel like you're imposing very strict definitions on what is inherently a very ambiguous or 'loose' field.

>Beauty is the goal of art.

I don't think so. Lots of paintings are not beautiful, but are very meaningful and artistic. For example, I find many of Frida Kahlo's works to be extremely artistic but not beautiful.

>Lyrics are what diminishes music

So you think that a song like 'Hurt' (NIN or Cash) is diminished by the very well written lyrics? Or that lyrics with certain rhyming structures subtract from the musicality of a song?

Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#62

Post by hodwic »

superhuzza wrote: post #61
hodwic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just making pictures for the only purpose of being "beautiful" is fine, just not very artful... Beauty is the goal of art. If his works don't resonate as well as a Nikolay Dubovskoy or a Cy Twombly, or any other human artist, it's in beauty that he fails. I find that generally this confusion around "beauty" comes from using a popular but non-standard definition of beauty. Beauty has meant, since the ancient Greeks…

I feel like you're imposing very strict definitions on what is inherently a very ambiguous or 'loose' field. >Beauty is the goal of art. I don't think so. Lots of paintings are not beautiful, but are very meaningful and artistic. For example, I find many of Frida Kahlo's works to be extremely artistic but not beautiful. >Lyrics are what diminishes music So you think that a song like 'Hurt' (NIN or Cash) is diminished…

> Lots of paintings are not beautiful, but are very meaningful and artistic.

Like the GP, you're using a definition of beauty which is not at all standard in the field of aesthetics.

If the work is visually meaningful and artistic, while producing a feeling that is in some way sublime, transcendental, revelatory, etc., then that's beauty you're seeing.

> you think that a song like 'Hurt' (NIN or Cash) is diminished by the very well written lyrics

Lyrics will make bad music better, by distracting from the music. Strip away the lyrics, and the underlying music in Hurt is pathetic when stood up against just about any Classical, Jazz, Progressive, et all, piece.

Lyrics != music. Lyrics are a thing added to music.

> I feel like you're imposing very strict definitions on what is inherently a very ambiguous or 'loose' field.

This is a very common sentiment among people who have not read anything from the last 3,000 years of the philosophy of aesthetics. :-P

Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#63

Post by hrnnnnnn »

kubami wrote: post #15
varjag wrote: post #9

Another interesting artist in this genre: https://twitter.com/inconvergent https://img.inconvergent.net/

Shameless plug: Inspired by "inconvergent" I have built a plotter and started working on my own generative art realised with pen and paper: https://www.instagram.com/framedbyher/

Where did you get the plotter?

Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#64

Post by rices »

Generative art is a fascinating space - it's in its infancy for sure - I've been getting into it this past year and wrote my first algorithm about a year ago:

https://anemy.github.io/concentric/

Like all art, it comes down to who witnesses it, and how it makes them feel. However - there's a definite gap between seeing something in real life versus digitally which I'd like to see Naon bridge. There's a large community of plotters which are doing a good job of bringing generative art into the real world. Definitely worth checking out the twitter hashtag:

https://twitter.com/hashtag/plottertwitter?src=hash

Naon cranks out amazing compositions at an astounding rate, it makes me real happy to see him get some good exposure like this.

One of the cofounders of Etsy, Jared Tarbell, is also a great artist and worth checking out: http://www.complexification.net/gallery/

If you'd like to see more generative works, the subreddit is a good starting place: https://www.reddit.com/r/generative/

Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#65

Post by fl0wenol »

tinco wrote: post #27
userbinator wrote: post #23

It seems that recently there's been interest in procedurally-generated imagery among artists, but almost all completely unaware that the demoscene has been doing the same (and much advanced its techniques) for many years: http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/raymarchingdf/raymarching... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

Demoscene demos are nice, but to me they feel more like expressions of technical prowess rather than aesthetic art. I don't think I've ever seen a demo where the result transcends the algorithm, and I don't think that's the goal of the demoscene in any case. They want to showcase how much technical brilliance they can fit in a couple of KB's. That's different from this example, where the goal is more like how much ex…

There is a abstract beauty in the implementation of the algorithms especially under the various constraints. I believe these constraints inspire creativity that those mildly practiced in or familiar with these arts can appreciate as an aesthetic or beauty all on their own, separate from and in addition to the audio/visual component.

Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#67

Post by d--b »

hodwic wrote: post #56
d--b wrote: post #51

One has to remember that "generative art" only characterizes techniques for generating pictures. Art itself is about what the picture makes people feel, or what they have to say. Just making pictures for the only purpose of being "beautiful" is fine, just not very artful...

> Just making pictures for the only purpose of being "beautiful" is fine, just not very artful... Beauty is the goal of art. If his works don't resonate as well as a Nikolay Dubovskoy or a Cy Twombly, or any other human artist, it's in beauty that he fails. I find that generally this confusion around "beauty" comes from using a popular but non-standard definition of beauty. Beauty has meant, since the ancient Greeks…

I agree with you, but I was referring to the "beauty" they talk about in the article (which is why I put it in quotes), which is something along the lines of "that that pleases the eye".

Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#68

Post by holdenc »

If you want to understand art since Cezanne, and especially after 1945, you need to understand the modernist idea of the meta-narrative. It works like this -- prior to the loosening up of gesture in painting, the narrative was whatever was depicted. Maybe it was Washington Crossing the Delaware, or Napoleon Crossing the Alps. Pictures told stories directly. Beginning with impressionist painting, and following through to non-objective modernist paint, pictures told a second story -- a meta-narrative. This is the narrative of the events that created the painting. It answers the question -- what is the story of this artwork's creation? This leaves the viewer to deal with things like struggle, imperfection, and arbitrary residue (there are cigarette butts within some Jackson Pollocks). Did you ever visit MoMa and see Barnett Newman's Vir Heroicus Sublimimis?

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79250?artist_id=4285&l...

It could be a generative work of art -- but wait -- the vertical stripes where the masking tape was peeled away leave small amount of paint bleeding into the stripes. Why? It tells you something about how it was made. Cold geometric forms made with a human touch. Visit the Joseph Albers, Piet Mondrian and Ad Reinhardt paintings and there's arbitrariness and human touch in them all.

So, I would ask you -- what is the meta-narrative of this generative art? What is the story behind it? Does it inspire you? Do you feel like you are looking at art? Or a modern art-themed screensaver?

Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#69

Post by calebm »

I believe the purpose of Art is to reveal the soul of the Artist. This is why simply copying (or trying to emulate) the work of another artist is not considered art. However, learning to follow the rules set by others is a helpful stepping stone to striking out on your own and breaking those rules.

Re: Generative Art Finds Its Prodigy

#70

Post by kubami »

hrnnnnnn wrote: post #63
kubami wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shameless plug: Inspired by "inconvergent" I have built a plotter and started working on my own generative art realised with pen and paper: https://www.instagram.com/framedbyher/

Where did you get the plotter?

I have built it myself. I was inspired by a couple of tutorials I found on the internet. Most of the components are off the shelf, stepper motors, smooth rods, belt, arduino, etc. The components that hold everything together are either 3d-printed or laser cut. The software that is running on the arduino that translates gcode -> stepper motor impulses is slightly modified grbl [0]

I have a (poor) timelapse video of the assembly process - [1]

[0] https://github.com/grbl/grbl

[1] https://framedbyher.com/the-story/

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