Generative Arts & Literature: an overview

1. SM2220 CIL core: a concept-driven studio class Dr. Linda Lai Spring 2010 Week 1-2 Generative Arts & Literature:an overview

2. 1. to provide an overview and historical survey of generative art and literature in order to develop the concept of generative systems and their relevance to new media creative context2. to conduct an in-depth case study on the Potential Literature of the Oulipo group and its expanded practices3. to examine the definitions and variety of “rules” and “rule-making” 4. to develop problem solving skills for generative art via code-writing This course has FOUR main purposes:

3. Beyond conceptual art and representation I.

4. One and Three Chairs Joseph Kosuth / 1965 Problem solving => art-making

6. One and Five Chairs - - - - - - - - - - / 2010 Problem solving => art-making

7. One and Five Clocks (Kosuth, 1965)

8. Analysis of a painting by Piet Mondrian What questions we often ask about a painting do not apply to this situation? What new, production questions are relevant? Re-creating Mondrian

9. Imagine we are asking someone to make an exact copy of the above painting by telling the person exactly what to do step by step ... What steps would you lay down for someone to reproduce many different Mondrian-like paintings? Re-creating Mondrian

10. Turning a painting into a generator... Exploring the generative potentials of a painting via the use of rules... The rule: Ask questions about this painting, apply divergent thinking, exhaust all the possible questions you can think of... Collective improvisation

12. Rules II.

13. Rules delimit (constrain) AND enable... Rules are used to organize parts (units into a whole... *unpredictable outcome *Creativity has to do with inventing and reinventing rules in a playful spirit Rules

14. Simple rules can generate many different images. Generative Art [G.A.] often depends on the power of REPETITION. GA often has a strong sense of order, similar to the growth of an organism. Rules

15. Analysis of Mondrian’s paintings • Rules • Constraints • Freedom/inventiveness within limit • Process / steps / algorithms • Surprises, amazement • Simple rule/simple unit  complexity

16. Rules? Types of rules? • Rules are delimiting/restricting as well as enabling/opening up • Types of “rules”…rules -that govern the forward movement of the action (keeps the work going) -that govern individual actions -that explores the step-between-step design -Rules about rules, e.g. cyclic repetition, reversal, distribution, recursion, iteration

17. What is Generative Art? III.

18. Generative Art • Rule-drivenness… • Chance • Automatism • Algorithms • Series • Trans-genre

19. Generative Art • Self multiplication • Self organization • Single unit  complex system • Simplicity  complexity • Rule application • Combinatorial / permutation / algorithm / emergence

20. Generative Art • Concern for… • New methods of composition… • Methods that allow a work to grow in scope and abundance

21. Generative Art: an initial case for review • Gego(German born female artist residing in Venezuela) • Lines …planes …objects …environment • Triangles… Squares… Spheres • Triangles into nets • Triangles forming circular planes • Triangles into cylinders and tubular structures • Triangles forming spheres • Squares into sheets • Squares into nets • Square as frames…

22. Generative Art: an initial case for review • Gego(German born female artist residing in Venezuela) • Anti-sculpture… • “I still dislike the word ‘sculpture’. They are not sculptures.” (referring to her works) • Dictionary definitions, she pointed out, describe sculpture as any assembled objects. • She felt such a definition does not sufficiently cover her works – mainly jointed pieces and structures. • Her intention was not only form and volume, but transparent structure. • ***She emphasizes she never made sketches of her work…

23. Generative Art: an initial case for review • Bernd & Hilla Becher • Generative thinking in field photography • Four decades: • photographing and classifying the industrial structures that are even now vanishing from the modern landscape...

24. What is Generative Art? • Generative Art performs the idea as process.

25. What is Generative Art? • Generative Art performs the idea as process. • Rules as constraint produce a somewhat automatic process. • Rules are used to ensure the next possible step forward. • GA begs the question of what’s possible & what is virtual

26. What is Generative Art? • Generative Art performs the idea as process. • Rules as constraint produce a somewhat automatic process. • Rules are used to ensure the next possible step forward. • The intricacies of a GA work often lie in the rational relation between each two steps + the leaps-and-bounds differences at the end of a sequence of operations.

27. Generative Art? • To generate = to produce, to bring into existence, to bring forward, to present to view or notice… • Generative = capable of producing • Generative  procedural, serialist

28. Generative Visual Arts • TWO kinds of generative systems in 20th-C art history (Diane Kirkpatrick): • Close generative systems: [e.g. conceptual art] in each work a closed analytic structure is set up which becomes a generator for exploration

29. Generative Visual Arts • TWO kinds of generative systems in 20th-C art history (Diane Kirkpatrick): • (2) Organic generative systems: • A work begins with creating one word or idea and uses that to generate the next, and the next and so on…(creating generators)

30. a poem by 鄭愁於 • 我打江南走過 • 那等在季節裏的容顏如蓮花的開落 • 東風不來，三月的柳絮不飛 • 你底心如小小寂寞的城 • 恰若青石的街道向晚 • 足音不響，三月的春帷不揭 • 你底是小小的窗扉緊掩 • 我達達的馬蹄是美麗的錯誤 • 我不是歸人，是個過客。

31. a poem by 鄭愁於digitized by Bryan Chung • 我打江南走過 • 那等在季節裏的容顏如蓮花的開落 • 東風不來，三月的柳絮不飛 • 你底心如小小寂寞的城 • 恰若青石的街道向晚 • 足音不響，三月的春帷不揭 • 你底是小小的窗扉緊掩 • 我達達的馬蹄是美麗的錯誤 • 我不是歸人，是個過客。 http://www.bryanchung.net/?p=247

32. Generative Visual Arts: work examples • Josef Albers: • (1) “Homage to Square” series (1950s) • Frank Stella: • (2) “Protractor Series” (93 paintings based on 31 canvas formats each with 3 compositional types) • Sol LeWitt: • (3) “Squares with Corners Torn off” (1975) X • (4) “Modular Open Cube”

33. Generative Visual Arts: work examples • Dorothea Rockburne: • (5) “Set” (1970) – inspiration from Mathematics • (6) “Radiant and Fields” (1971) – concept of units becoming more complex X • (7) “Drawing That Makes Itself” (1973) X • Jennifer Bartlett: • (8) “Rhapsody” (1975-76)

34. Generative Visual Arts: work examples • Doug Huebler: • (9) “Duration Piece No. 6” (NY, 4/1969) – photo series X • (10) “Location Piece No. 6” (1970) X • (11) “Duration Piece No. 7” • (12) “Location Pieces No. 7”

35. Generative Visual Arts: work examples • Sonia Sheridan: • (13) mono-prints series based on one image (1963-64) • (14) “Unwind the Wheel of Time” (1979) – eight drawings X

36. TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENT • Generative drawings: • Make 5 drawings, each containing: • a circle • a stick-man • a tree • a square • Record the rules you've used and developed

37. Process, procedures, sequence, series IV.

38. Sequence and series • Sequence • Order of arrangement: what comes become and what comes after… • Series • The possible formations of elements based on rules of selection and combination… [refer to game we played in class]

39. Algorithms: procedures in computing • Algorithm is the systematic procedures that computer science adopts to final correct solution to complex problems. • Algorithm is a procedure for solving a problem in terms of: • 1) the actions to execute • 2) the order in which these actions execute

40. Algorithms: actions in order • “rise-and-shine algorithm” • [source: H.M. Deitel & P.J. Deitel (2005), C++: How to Program 5th edition, p. 121] • (1) Get out of bed • (2) Take off pajamas • (3) Take a shower • (4) Get dressed • (5) Eat breakfast • (6) Drive to work • Consider other sequencing possibilities and the qualitative change in narrative meaning, e.g.: • (1) – (2) – (4) – (3) – (5) – (6)

41. An illustration of Recursion • Recursion is one class of algorithms • Recursion: the process of solving a large problem by reducing it to one or more sub-problems which are: • Identical in structure to the original problems; and • Simpler to solve

42. An illustration of Recursion • How to collect $1000 in a fundraising event in which coupons are printed at $1 per piece: • One way to do it is to find one person who can donate the total amount… • [Source: Eric S. Roberts (1986), Thinking Recursively, pp. 1-4]

43. How to collect $1000 • One way to do it is to use an iterative solution:

44. How to collect $1000: a recursive solution • Principle: • to break down the problem into identical, sub-problems that are simple to solve •  • Enlist 10 people, each in charge of raising $100. • Each person asked 10 volunteers who will raise $10 each. • Each volunteer will find 10 others who agree to raise $1.

46. How to collect $1000: a recursive solution • The use of recursion here is a “divide-and-conquer” method. • The original problem divides to form several simpler sub-problems, which branch into a set of simpler ones…until the simple cases[the simplest case(s), base case(s)]

47. How to collect $1000: recursive solution

48. More illustrations on the use of Recursion • Mondrian-like computer art • 1907-1914: Cubism (a modern art movement) flourished in Paris • [nature should be represented in terms of its primitive geometrical components, e.g. cylinders, cones, spheres etc.] • The Cubist community was dissolved at the outbreak of WWI  ideas influenced and shaped the development of abstract art, • e.g. works of Piet Mondrian, characterized by rigid patterning of vertical and horizontal lines.