Generativity

The Aesthetics of Generative Code
Geoff Cox, MA (RCA)

Generative Art- refers to art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system.

Abstract

What is aesthetic in its general use?
Subjective perception associated with art and human creativity.

Jonathan Ree’s, I See a Voice: A Philosophical History (1999)- suggests that the troubled relationship between art & aesthetic has similarities to generative code.

Aesthetics

Jorge Luis Borges in Foreword to Obra Poetica suggests that a code with good aesthetics is the act of the code & not the code itself.

Aesthetics is in fact argues to have multiple definitions:
-”pertaining to the beautiful or the theory of ‘taste’ ”
-aesthetics as a broader science of the conditions of sense perception (Kant)

The ideology to aesthetics
-also called the ‘generative matrix’ by Slavoj Zizek. This ‘generative matrix’ analogously expresses the generative code beneath the action.

Analogously- referring to parts that have a similar function but differ in structure “according to a proper ratio or proportion” Greek word meaning.

Limits

Aesthetics being compared to multimedia. They are both about combining senses. Aesthetics in a sense of “specific characterisation of the senses” & multimedia in a sense of combining image, sound & interaction.

Aesthetics theory used to look at the separation of sensual experience, but nowadays it has turned into recognizing the body as a whole (an integrated system)

Diderots Encyclopedia says the 5 senses are a parallel establishment = “beaux arts”
-architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry
It can be suggested that multimedia is bringing together these “beaux arts”

There are theories where sensory apparatus meet in the brain (Descartes), but there is a lack of detail on this approach. However it could still be applied to terms of the computer.

(Ree) I See a Voice looks into the division between a “rationalists” (Plato, Liebniz) & a “empiricists” (Aristotle,Locke)

Rationalist approach- knowledge emerging from intellect (before sensory experience)
Empiricist approach- senses produce knowledge making universal truth unreliable

Poetry
“The Perl Poetry Contest”
-poetry is both written and heard
-Perl language doesn’t show language itself

2 different types of theorists: Dadaists & Surrealists
They both used arbitrary patterns, rhythmic noise and mere chance arrangements of words and sounds

Stochastic L- systems determined by chance

Tristan Tzara (Dadaist) suggested to poets who were trying to make it in the real world to “cut up a newspaper article into words and make a poem by shaking them out of a bag at random”.He also believed that journalists corrupted and abused the language

-There is still a purpose in the arrangements of the code. In fact, the attention to detail is mostly important when it is seen written.
-What is important in generative media is that the data is changed whilst the code runs (in real time)
-code works like poetry : “it plays with structures of language itself as well as our corresponding perceptions”

THE AESTHETICS OF GENERATIVE CODE
GEOFF COX + GENERATIVE PROGRAMME

Here is my Generative Programme which unfolds over time when you use the slider to move the fractors. This was in fact a coding challenge by "TheCodingTrain" and I succeeded in this challenge.

I have uploaded my final sketch above, with the code and different screenshots of my programme unfolding.

I used fractals and recursion to create this Generative Art.
Fractals are a never-ending patterns. These patterns are self-similar across different scales.

This feedback- loop, driven by recursion created these lively and energetic systems, that can be considered generative art.