there must be no generative, procedural or computational art « alex mclean

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Ale McLean

Making music with text

Best known and wrong: Dreyfus and Dreyfus

There must be no generative, procedural or computational art

This blog entr feels like a work in progress, so feedback is especiall encouraged.

Lately Ive been considering a dichotomy running through the history of computer art. On one side of the

dichotomy, considerthis press statement from SAP, the worlds leading provider of business software, on

sponsoring a major interactive art group show at the V&A:

London October 08, 2009 Global software leader SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today

announced its exclusive partnership with the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London for

an innovative and interactive exhibition entitled Decode: Digital Design Sensations. Central to the

technology-based arts experience is Bit.Code, a new work by German artist Julius Popp,

commissioned by SAP and the V&A. Bit.Code is themed around the concept of clarity, which

also reflects SAPs focus on transparency of data in business, and of how people process and

use digital information.

As consumers, people are overwhelmed with information that comes from a wide variety of

electronic sources. Decode is about translating into a visual format the increasing amount of data

that people digest on a daily basis. The exhibit seeks to process and make sense of this whileengaging the viewer in myriad ways.

As far as art sponsorship goes, this is pretty damn weird. The grand entrance installation was

commissioned to reflect the mission statement of the corporate sponsor. I found nothing in this exhibition

about the corporate ownership and misuse of personal data, just something here about helping confused

consumers.

Of course this is nothing new, the Cbernetic Serendipit exhibition at the ICA in 1968 was an early

showcase of electronic and computer art, and was similarly compromised by the intervention of corporate

sponsors. As Usselmann notes, despite the turbulence of the late sixties, there was no political dimension tothe exhibition. Usselmann highlights the inclusion of exhibits by sponsoring corporations in the exhibition itself

as excluding such a possibility, and suggests that this created a model of entertainment well suited for

interactive museum exhibits, but compromised in terms of socio-political engagement. Cybernetic Serendipity

was well received, and is often lauded for bringing together some excellent work for the first time, but in

curatorial terms it seems possible that it has had lasting negative impact on the computer art field.

As I was saying though, there is a dichotomy to be drawn, and Inke Arns drew it well in this 2004 paper.

Arns makes a lucid distinction between generative art on one side, and software art on the other. Generative

art considers software as a neutral tool, a black box which generates artworks. Arns gets to the key pointof generative art, that it negates intentionality: the artworks are divorced from any human author, and

considered only for their aesthetic. This lack of author is celebrated by generative artists, as if the lack of

cultural context could set the artwork free towards infinite beauty. Arns contrasts this with software art,

which instead focuses on software itself as the work, therefore placing responsibility for the work back on the


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human programmer. In support, Arns invokes the notion of performative utterances from speech act theory;

the process ofriting source code is equivalent toperforming source code. Humans project themselves by

the act of programming, just as they do through the act of speech.

Arns relates the generative art approach with early work in the 60s, and software art approach with

contemporary work, but this is unfair. As could be seen in much of the work at Bit.Code, the presentation of

sourcecode as a politically neutral tool is still very much alive. More importantly, she neglects similar

arguments to her own already being made in the late sixties/early seventies. A few years after CyberneticSerendipity, Frieder Nake published his essay There should be no computer art, giving a leftist perspective

that decried the art market, in particular the model of art dealer and art gallery selling art works for the

aesthetic pleasure of ruling elite. Here Nake retargets criticism of sociopolitical emptiness against the art

world as a whole:

.. the role of the computer in the production and presentation of semantic information which is

accompanied by enough aesthetic information is meaningful; the role of the computer in the

production of aesthetic information per se and for the making of profit is dangerous and

senseless.

From this we already see the dichotomy between focus on aesthetic output of processes, and focus on the

processes of software and its role in society. These are not mutually exclusive, and indeed Nake advocates

both. But, it seems there is a continuing tendency, with its public beginnings in Cybernetic Serendipity, for

computer artists to focus on the output.

So this problem is far from unique to computer art, but as huge corporations gain ever greater control over

our information and our governments, the absence of critical approaches in computer art in public galleries

looks ever more stark.

So returning to the title of this blog entry, which borrows from the title of Nakes essay, perhaps there should

be no generative, procedural or computational art. Maybe it is time to leave generative and procedural art for

educational museum exhibits. I think this is also true of the term computational art, because the word

computation strongly implies that we are only interested in the end results of processes that halt, rather than

in the activity of perpetual processes and their impact on our lives. Is it time to return to software art, or

processor art, or turn to something new, like critical engineering?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 1st, 2012 at 5:12 pm and is filed underrant. You can follow any responses to this

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23 Responses to There must be no generative, procedural or computational

art

1. Kas says:

January 1, 2012 at 7:33 pm

The quoted bit struck me too; you could just as easily say that people can be overwhelmed by data

while trying to cast a informed vote in a democracy, or overwhelmed by data when

trying to figure out what would be healthy for them or.Either way there is a lot of power in the hands of the one creating the tool to help.

Its interesting that the text of this marketing initiative looks at the audience exactly as youd expect a

marketer to look at them; as confused consumers in need of guidance. I wonder to what degree such


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exhibitions make people think of themselves in that way too, or whether this might cause a sort of

mental rebellion.

2. Thorsays:


I agree with the general thrust of this post. Very interesting read and it shows that there is always a

need for a good bullshit LPF in sponsored art fairs, biennales and, in particular, when there are new art

forms at play.

My problem with the argument is this dichotomy that you maintain from Inke Arns. I think strong

definitions like those can often be helpful, but they do colour-by-number a reality which is much more

complex.

I think there is a lot of software art that is generative and aims at erasing the author from the creative

process and, likewise, I think generative art does not have to be neutral or a black box at all. Its all up

to the creator who rarely thinks in terms of such dichotomies.

3. Ale says:

January 2, 2012 at 12:29 am

Yes, Inke notes that her argument is polemical and I admit the same of this blog post. However the

autonomy of processes is key to Galanters definition of generative art, and I think that strongly implies

the negation of intentionality.

There is a big question whether software art as a culture ever really existed, it could just have been acuratorial fiction (see http://www.projects.v2.nl/~arns/Texts/Media/Software_Art_Panel.html). In any

case it doesnt have a strong identity now, and so Arns paper has dated since she wrote it in 2004. But

still, she finds some interesting insights I think, which connect well with Nakes earlier essay despite

overgeneralising about that era.

4. isjtarsays:


Im sorry but this article is full of senseless generalisations and semantical arguments which make nosense.

Arns distinction between generative and software art is wrong. Generative art is not necessarily made

with software and we could even say software art is not even necessarily generative.

Furthermore, I often find people who describe themselves as software artists less sensitive to the

context of free software, privacy etc.

Also, to say that the generative art seeks to erase the artist is a simplification. It questions the role of

the artist, not the same thing. Refer to Cope for example.

I see a lot of generative art which is critical, I also see a lot which is less. However, the notion that it

has to become critical engineering or educational is nonsense. There is a lot of engaging, aesthetic

and critical work to be made, you can call it generative or computational or just art.

5. Ale says:


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Hi Isjtar,

Yes I agree that generative art is not necessarily made with software, and this is clear in the paper by

Arns so I assume you havent read it?

Arns defines what she means by Generative Art and Software Art quite clearly, referring to accepted

definitions where possible. You might define these terms differently, but that is arguing over semantics

and not a point of argument. If you want to engage with Arns you will at least have to try to understand

what her words mean.

The software artists I know are very much aware of software culture, issues of freedom and privacy,

and as Arns defines the term, artists who do not do so, are hardly software artists.

David Cope makes works derived from statistical analysis of other works, which he cherry picks and

modifies by hand. Therefore I think the discussion of authorship around his work is either based on a

misunderstanding or plain fraudulent, as well as beside the point.

6. ijasays:


Hi,

No I havent read Arns, but then maybe your quoting is too selective?

I agree the discussion is semantic, that is where Im having trouble with your article. It is largely based

on semantics and a perspective on the generative/software art culture I dont seem to share.In Copes Computer Models of Musical Creativity, he spends quite some time on anekdotes and

reflections on how his work is received and the problem of authorship, especially since he uses

statistical methods. So I would say it is relevant, and illustrates my point of the position of authorship in

people who call themselves generative artists is not as simple as celebrating the lack of authorship.

7. ijasays:


Just skimmed through Arns article (missed the link earlier) and though well constructed, I must say Istill partly disagree.

Anyway, another thing to note, is that software artist is sometimes used to pigeon hole artist in a

software engineering role, while the real artist works on the overall idea. This is a trend I thoroughly

dislike.

In practice, a lot of it is down to communication. If Im doing a generative installation thing and I

explain it in a Dorkbot session, I can go on about the code and tools. When explaining it to to family, I

will concentrate on the experience and aesthetics, general context. With an academic, about the wider

cultural implications. If a curator picks it up, he or she will present it within the concept of theexhibition. It doesnt change the work or the way it should be categorized.

I cant comment on the corporate financing part as such funding is rare here, so the link is strange to


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me.

8. Ale says:


Hi Isjtar, I wasnt aware of people confusing software artist with artist assistant before, that is a

worrying trend although also helpful in showing who to ignore.

Good points about different ways of presenting the same work, although I think curators should

present work which will challenge audiences in a multitude of ways, rather than present art as

entertainment. I would also argue that the way a work is presented can change its reception

fundamentally.

And yes, my perspective is from the UK, although of course Nake and Arns write from a German

perspective.

9. Ale says:


I maintain that Cope is celebrating the lack of authorship, while hiding behind a mechanical turk. If you

enjoyed Computer models of musical creativity, you might find this review interesting:

http://yaxu.org/tmp/wiggins-cope.pdf

10. isjtarsays:


Im not a particular fan of Cope, mostly because my music is electronic and his approach would

produce something similar to Wendy Carlos, but I remember reading his book years ago and being

particularly under the impression that he wanted personal recognition, but I see your point. Thanks for

the link.

Anyway, a last point to make is that theres another reason I like to use the term generative as its

more or less easy to understand and applicable to different forms of art. For example generative

music works, software music is weird. A computational installation sounds like a super computer,

procedural will get you in court. But that is from a practical, not an academic point of view. Were stillstuck with the terms IDM and New Media.

Ill stop spamming your blog now, by the way I see youve visited foam recently, if youre in Brussels

any time, let me know and we can discuss other things over a beer.

Best,

Isjtar

11. Ale says:


Heh, yes considering music does derail things somehow, Nake admitted as much in his follow up to the


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essay I cited.

On reflection I guess my blog post is about trying to challenge my own practice, which lately has been

more like Arnss generative than software art. I should make that clearer so it doesnt look so much

like an attack on other people.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, will let you know when Im next in bru, great beer you have there :)

12. Kas says:


Here (Netherlands) corporate sponsorship is also quite rare, but state-sponsorship is very, very

common (to the point where the great majority of art events are in some way funded by the state). Its

been sufficiently debated whether or not that is a good thing (at least sufficient for me to be quite tired

of it) but it clearly does affect what art is created. For example; software art that critiques corporate

data collection like that web2.0 suicide machine and Naked on Pluto are sponsored here but no

similar works about state-based data collection appeared, at least not that I know of. For reference;this country has the most phone-taps per capita worldwide, so its not like there wouldnt be a reason

for such works.

Obviously sorporate sponsorships come at a cost in terms of what can and should be talked about in a

given work, but IMHO state funding is not a panacea either. Itd be nice if I could now give a

alternative, but the only thing that I can come up with is pointing out that the needs of the software artist

are quite modest compared to many other arts

13. Ale says:


I should say that corporate sponsorship is rare here too. Its interesting that Cybernetic Serendipity

was sponsored by American corporations and military institutions, and Bit.Code by SAP, a German

company.

Arts funding in the UK mainly comes from the government via the arts council, although the digital arts

funding from this route has been severely cut in the last year. I absolutely agree state funding has similar

problems, and also extra problems on top. Im sure both of these exhibitions received state funding

and were compromised in ways that are perhaps a bit more hidden.

Ive been involved with weekend dorkbot events for 80 people that cost 25 each including three days

food and accommodation. And yet, an event that receives both large amounts of state funding and high

profile sponsorship can cost artists many 100s to take part in *as performers* What happened to

economy of scale?

Yes, no easy answers..

14. Kas says:


Yeah. I wouldnt be as sceptical about those funding structures if it werent more likely that they ended

up paying security personel, bartenders, etc, before the actual artists.Oh, well, at least this model


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forced me to get experience as a barman, doorman, sound engineer, stage manager, lights rigger and

organiser too. That has some value too. Thats fairly common amongst my social circle, not some claim

about me being special.

15. Philip Galanersays:


First, thanks to Alex for some interesting points and stirring up an interesting conversation here and

elsewhere. And my apologies to those who may have seen parts of this post elsewhere.

A couple points that are difficult to state briefly:

First, it concerns me greatly when, especially in the context of generative art, there is an implicit point

made that art without political content is somehow lacking, or that formal art is somehow not enough in

itself, or is merely a phase to be passed though and left behind. (Not that anyone here is saying

precisely that)

Im fond of saying that art is too important to be wasted on politics, and politics is too important to be

trusted to artists. This is, of course, intentionally provocative in its glibness. But perhaps the following

will add some meat.

Form matters. Form isnt just a concern for artists, it also has to do with science and philosophy and

religion. Artists in the modern period made would-be heroic claims to privileged understanding of form

as expressions of their inner psyche and the channeling of primordial forces. Artists in the postmodern

period in the process of rejecting the claims to privilege and high art, a claim also attacked in part by

the identity politics promoted in postmodern critical studies, rejected formalism. Beauty came to be

thought of as, at best, a naive and useless notion, and at worst a destructive tool of ideology andpolitical oppression.

Generative art, and especially generative art that harnesses what we are learning from complexity

science, is a unique opportunity to rehabilitate formalism in art. It presents form as anything but

arbitrary. It presents beauty as the result of an understandable universe neutral to human social

construction in a fair and unbiased way.

Formalism in art can now be thought of as neither a claim to privilege nor meaningless beauty. Form

can be appreciated as a real, meaningful, publicly understandable process available to all. Relative to

the postmodern era, tired and played out, this new conception of form is revolutionary and well worth

exploration in its own right.

Second point, regarding the claim that generative processes are used to negate intentionality.

They certainly can be, but they also certainly dont have to be. A trivial example would be generative

techniques used in Hollywood animated filmmaking. They might, for example, use L-systems and so on

to create a forest scene. There is no negation of intentionality. The art director gets the look he or she

wants. Its a purely pragmatic decision.

Frankly I see the term generative art as having very little content. Its a starting point in that it is a

name for a subset of art made in a certain way. But it says nothing about that art in terms of content,

meaning, value, criticism (other than categorization), and so on.


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Its a lot like the term painting. Painting refers to work made by applying pigment to a surface. But

any statement like painting is about revealing the soul or painting is about mimesis or whatever is

bound to be wrong. Wrong because painting can be about these things, but also so much more.

The one thing all generative art does has in common, by definition, is the use of generative systems.

Thats why in my take on it the next step is to ask what can we say about systems? I try to put that

question in the context of complexity science because I view that as the current best universal take on

systems. And indeed it yields a way to sort out subsets of generative art, and it turns out those subsetscame into practice in a historical order.

But beyond that I find statements that generative art is this or that wrong in that they are overly

exclusionary. What *could* be said is something like at this point in art history the most useful

generative art addresses the issue of intentionality. That would be a debatable point, but it doesnt

deny the category of generative art to art that really should be included.

Personally I am not very interested in the issues around intentionality, and Im very much less interested

in the intersection of art and politics. What is interesting to me is how complex generative systems give

us a way to explore the very nature of the universe.

16. Kas says:


To clarify; Im not that interested in the intersection of art and politics either, but I am interested in the

link between politics and the ability to share ones art. Thats without even going into the link between

politics and the ability to benefit from ones art.

17. Ale says:


Thanks for the thoughtful response, Philip.

I disagree that your definition of generative art has little content.

You define generative art as produced by an autonomous process. That

negates programmer intentionality.

Your example works against you. Not only are l-systems lessautonomous than a paintbrush, but animation studios are not at all

interested in autonomy, everything must be controlled within tight

parameters, because render farm time is expensive. Just using

generative grammars does not conform to your definition of generative

art.

When generative art (such as Adrian Wards auto-illustrator) makes a

sociopolitical point, it does so by focussing on the process and not

just its output. That is when it transcends generative art as you

define it, and becomes something else. Not work produced by autonomy,

but work *about* autonomy.

Furthermore you ignore the strong political content of SAPs press


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release, and of the curatorial decision to show military and

industrial designs in the same exhibition as computer artwork.

Yes, there is plenty of room to explore the nature of the universe

through computation. But personally Id rather leave that to Wolfram

for me code is much more interesting as a way of exploring

ourselves, including in terms of what we can experience as

individuals, and understanding our place in society.

18. Ale says:


Well, Im not very interested in the intersection between artists and politicians.

But I am very interested in the relation between the activity of writing code, its output and the human

themes of perception, experience, thought, communication and freedom. This I think has more to do

with politics than it has to do with autonomy.

19. Kas says:


Yes, thats true too. You could say that in todays world where the process is a given and can be

intentionally hidden (for example in the case of those secret debates in supposedly democratic

governments about that copyright law) focussing on the process at all is a political act. Its also hard to

make a distinction between politics and autonomy in a strongly regulated society.

Id prefer not to have to be bothered by this and to stick to slinging some nice music and images intothe world, but as pointed out above Im often forced to.

20. Ben Bogart says:


Hello Alex, I would like to point you to my own work, which I consider centrally concerned with

criticism and culture, generation and process, and scientific knowledge. In particular the Dreaming

Machine installations. Some reading:

http://isea2011.sabanciuniv.edu/paper/context-machines-series-autonomous-self-organizing-site-

specific-artworks

http://www.ekran.org/ben/wp/2011/is-generative-art-formal-or-conceptual/

http://mwatz.tumblr.com/post/13279924274/concept-vs-form

http://www.ekran.org/ben/wp/2011/emphasis-abstraction-and-richness/

http://www.ekran.org/ben/writing/Ben-Bogart-Thesis.pdf

I think you are making a lot of assumptions about generative art that do not apply as broadly as

presented.

21. Kas says:



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Loose note, I thought of while walking to the store this evening; before we get too sceptical of

corporate funding of computer arts; Bell Labs. There are a few more stray examples here and there

(the Philips Studio, we might count the Radiophonic Workshop, etc). Bell Labs proves it can be done

in a nice way and I fear we have to wonder where we would be without them.

22. Daniel says:


Late in responding to this, but its given me pause to reflect on a lot of these relationships between art

and politics, which I formerly considered myself quite uninterested in

A few points:

1. This quiet exclusion of explicitly political work, in favour of ludic interactivity, is a very disturbing

thought. Of course, there is something political about the democratisation of the artwork (and

Metzgers self destructive objects) blah blah, but I know this isnt what you are getting at.

However, Id wager that in 1968, the radical newness of these forms (robotics, kinetic art, synthetic

biology, interactive sound machines, etc) would surely preoccupy the visitor and the artist. Trying to

cram both the technologically new and the politically profound could dilute the message so thinly to

become meaningless. Isnt it the case that any artform in its early stage is first focused on the materiality

of the form itself? Take early video art, sound art, or net art all began with investigations of their own

medium (thinking Nam June Paik, Christian Marclay, etc) and only later branched out to more overtly

political messages (Marclays guitar drag). I think this is a pretty common trend in art history.

So, though the list of sponsors is pretty scary, I do wonder how different the artworks critical

engagement would have been without it.

2. This lack of criticality in digital art is less justifiable nowadays, now it is a firmly established form. I

was entirely underwhelmed by Decode, which felt basically like a glorified hall of mirrors and totally

evoked the winking lights, flickering television screens and the squawks that Usselman cites.

However, do remember that Decode was an exhibition of digital deign, not fine art, and should be

judged as such. In terms of the objects, systems and interfaces that it showcased, it was moderately

more interesting. But dont expect profound explicit messages.

I think this distinction is very important, as a million identikit openFrameworks/openCV installationspop up and are presented as meaningful artwork because they consist of some kind of banal visually-

based interactivity. This is design, or gaming, or art-lite.

3. From your post: generative art negates intentionality: the artworks are divorced from any human

author, and considered only for their aesthetic. I strongly disagree! It elocae intentionality, and

changes the role of the author to a meta-composer. Brings to mind the Cage quote, in which an artists

choices consist in choosing what questions to ask

I think its naive to claim that any generative work, no matter how autonomous, is not still the direct

work of the artist-programmer behind it. My work that incorporates generative process does so in

order to multiply its outputs, introducing some element of surprise but without doing stuff that I would

attribute to the processpe e more as a conjunctive, distributed agency.


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I dont fully get your response to Philip re L-systems. I dont think it makes much sense to say which is

more autonomous, though with indeterminacy and context-based decision rules (which any

Hollywood grammar would use) they can become so. And they certainly fall right into his definition of

generativity (any art practice where the artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a

computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some

degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art).

It seems a bit like you are objecting to his example of a less-autonomous case by saying it is notautonomous at all, thus not generative, thus not a valid example!

The concluding point is, of course, the old chestnut: its all a continuum, there are varying degrees of

generativity, varying degrees of political overtness, etc. But though most may be playthings, sketches or

experiments, that is no reason to abandon the whole form.

4. Im sure I had more than 4 points might add to this later. I do have a continued interest in the

topic, as some of the work that I do is very expensive to produce and install, way beyond my means

and those of some other galleries/host institutions/funding bodies. A recent installation had backing

from a corporate entity whose interests are divergent to my own. They provided complete backing,and genuinely engaged with the project and its ideas without any attempt to extract anything further (let

alone impact on its direction or ideas). They did not ask for any explicit association on the projects

publicity itself. As far as I could see, the negative ramifications of accepting the backing were almost

nonexistent. Your post has given me a lot to think about however, in terms of activities that commercial

backing subtly discourages. So, thanks!

23. Ale says:


Hi Daniel, all good points.

Firstly note that in writing this I was reconsidering my own practice as someone who does not create

artworks with explicit political content either. This was as much about introspection as anything else,

although this got lost a bit as I got into a slightly argumentative mode of discussion with Philip. I found it

useful to question my own position and the environment I work in.

I did consider the design context of the V&A and design subtext of the description of the exhibition. I

think most of the exhibitors would describe themselves as artists rather than designers though, and on

the whole the literature from the exhibition and sponsor does that I think this exhibition is a good

representation of mainstream digital arts.

I also thought decode was a hall of mirrors, literally so in many (perhaps the majority?) of the works.

I agree heartily that the human artist cant be written out of computer art. What Im trying to say is that

by focussing on autonomy, were giving up responsibility for the content of the work and closing off

possibilities. Youre right though, I did tie myself in knots a little over this due to the afore-mentioned

argumentative streak (which continued on the eu-gene list for a while).

Although Im taking an extreme view against my own practice, I agree a continuum is healthy. I think

the decode exhibition was also an extreme, though.

Fair point about funding too, and Kassen makes a very good point that governmental funding has its


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