Generative Art

Generative Art

Bogdan Soban was born in Slovenia on 10^th Dec, 1949. He graduated from grammar school in Nova Gorica and earned a degree in mechanical engineering. During his degree, for the first time he saw a computer with data processing which he stated ‘was a turning point of his career.’ Inspired by the computer enormously, he gave up the field of engineering. After finding a job, he started developing and programmed commercial applications. Once settled, he used to develop many programs using generative art to generate unpredictable piece of visual art during his free time. Every art he created was something very unique to him and therefore, he organized many exhibitions and live presentations on his art work and his process of generative art.

Artist Statement

“The main purpose of my project is to create pictures – artworks on the screen of the computer, to choose interesting and aesthetic examples and save or print them. Pictures are created using my own genetic designed software without applying any existing program of graphic design available in the world…”

So what exactly is generative art?

According to Wikipedia.org, generative art refers to “art or design that has been generated, composed, or constructed in a semi-random manner through the use of computer software/mathematical algorithms…”

What is the art and computing process?

When Soban first started creating his artwork, he used to use GWBASIC but then he switched to Visual Basic. The computation of the functions in the program is that it will only create the art once, and will never be repeated in the future. According to the art process, there are infinite numbers of possibilities. Take for example, 3 colored squares, with 16 different background and square colors in addition with 100 different dimensions of squares (135 possible positions of the squares on the screen). Having said that, it can take more than 80 billions years to see all combinations. And of course, this is just a simple example. So the possibilities of creating such art are endless.

As mentioned before, generative art is using mathematical instruction to basically create art and this is exactly what Soban does. He also defines the rules by which the artworks are created with influence of unpredictability. The calculations that Soban inputs in the program defines mathematical expressions that have definite values of all x and y coordinates. For example, he has created on program that allows him to move around (up, down, right, left) and then discover how the image looks from different views from the starting point of the coordinates (0,0). The important thing is the to apply the right and correct mathematical functions that create interesting shapes far away from point (0,0).

This is all done by using random number generator which helps in calculating the starting value of the generative process. This way, it randomly inputs all the different coordinates and all the infinite possibilities to create the ‘generative art.’

As stated earlier, he created his first art using BASIC and random number generator. During the 80’s, many people were amazed to see Soban’s new way of creating art. The mathematical expressions were that of choosing the largest elements determining an artwork such as shapes, sizes, colors. It was always unpredictable and would never repeat again. Here are two examples of his first artwork on a computer.

In 1999, he found many articles and papers that were similar to the type of art that he was creating. Discovering different experiences from artists, he learned many new concepts of creating art on his computer. So it was a matter of time since he got his first program using mathematic expressions and formula based on algorithm. The art below are two examples of mathematically generated pictures.

I would like to compare the two art above. I think its a difficult thing analyzing art that is created mathematically or even randomly. I really like the 2nd picture because its applies different colour combinations and looks more like a real artwork. However, the first art colours really stands out and gives an impression of something sharp or fire-like is portraited on the art.

On Soban’s website, he has posted up some of his demo programs that he has used to create his artwork. I have tried out 4 of his programs and they look pretty cool to me. These were:

- real time image generator based on mathematical algorithms

- text-based image generator

- square based generative program

- image generator using spray techniques

I really enjoyed using the image generator using spray techniques because it was quite new to me and it was different from the other programs I used. The text-based image generator was also a pretty funky piece of program. It basically uses text user inputs and based on that it creates the art. The other two were also good programs that I enjoyed using.

Here are some more artwork created by Soban

I like the oceanic blue used in the first 2 art and for the one above, it looks more or like a graffiti art with different colours and shapes forming a vague image which looks pretty awesome

Rerferences: Wikipedia, Soban's Site

Codagraphs (Personal Site)

** For full case study, please go here **

Biography

Writing and composing his own stories at a young age, Simon David Eden, is a artist comprising computer technology and digital processing to create art. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in 1987 with a Master of Arts with Distinction in filmmaking in which he was awarded a scholarship by Goldcrest Films. After graduation, he worked as a screenwriter in United States and Britain to support his experimentations and family. After a decade of comprises, he took a two year vacation just to focus on his work as an artist. But this wasn’t his only passion, his interest in fine arts and music open opportunities to stage concerts at various colleges and clubs throughout UK.Simon creates his works in a number of different mediums such as photography, paintings, photomontage, etc. In 2002, he began to integrate computer technology and digital-processing into his art which he called “Codagraphs”. A series of works entitled "The Weight of Fire" emerged and were first exhibited in a solo show at the Square One Gallery in Chelsea, London, in late 2005.

Artist Statement

“… the inspiration for the Icythys [ick-thoos] Variations grew out of my desire to create something that would have a direct and natural link to the Bahamas, and yet also flow organically from my research into the ancient bonds between science and nature, which was the guiding theme behind my Weight of Fire series.

The mystical ichthys symbol [ichthys is the Greek word for fish] is formed when two circles of the same radius intersect in such a way that the circumference of each passes through the centre point of the other.

The Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras considered the symbol - also known as ‘the measure of the fish’- to be invested with sacred qualities, and the circles themselves appear as potent symbols of spirit, unity and the cycle of life, in many ancient cultures.

As the first known inhabitants of the Bahamas were the Siboney Indians, who depended on fishing for their survival over 7000 years ago, the ichthys seemed a fitting subject to explore for the exhibition… “

Simon gives a statement on his work, Ichthys Variation #2, and what inspired him to create such art. Ichthys is created from two equal circles with interest meeting through the center point. He has also given a brief history on the topic of his art.

Artwork

Here's the artwork I created during the last class. Don't go deep with this pic...u won't find much..haha

Heres some art I created recently...

Massurreal Landscape

Alan King – Massurreal Landscape

Alan King was born in Greenwich, South East London, in February 1952. At a young age, he started drawing complex buildings and was ‘experimenting with perspective.’ When he shifted his school to Eltam Green School, his art teacher allowed him to develop their own art and this is when Alan discovered his creativity. He introduced the Surreal Art of Dali, and the groundbreaking surreal photography of Herbert Bayer.

After finishing school, he went into the field of commercial art which ended fairly quickly because he was transferred to the accounting department. During the 60s-70s, he was awarded commissions in which he could exhibit his artwork in local shows in London but soon moved out of London. His current form of artwork is experimenting photography with geometric illusionary pieces with computer software in 1999. His strange style was accredited when he was invited to the Massurreal group 2004. He moved to Dorset during the summer of 2005, after living in Milton Keynes for 28 years.

So what kind of art does Alan King create? His created are based on two common mediums, the traditional and the computer-generated art. He has created more computer-generated art. Alan King's art is defined by his fascinating creation of landscape compositions. Executed in a style recognized as Massurrealism (“based in further evolution of surrealism with technology” wikipedia.org), these distinctive works bring-to-mind the landscapes of well-known Surrealist painters, but have a definite contemporary edge to them.

Lets have a look at his art process. The following images are done as a sequence for the final picture.

As we can see in the above picture, sketches are made. This, of course is his first original idea of the art, The Gate. As of yet, he hasn't used any form of technology with the art, just the traditional form of paper and pencil.

Once he got the basic idea of what he is going to create, he moves on a more detailed view of his art. Specific and accurate, as you can see in the above picture, has been created through line drawing. This is basically the final version of the art and in the next process, he has only added colour to his art.

Once created the full outline in the line drawing, he has now moved to hand colouring using simple colours to start filling up his art. We can see that he as his first colour to this art.

After adding all the 'first-color,' he has completed the picture using calligraphy ink (hand made). Since the art process of the art is done, we can have a look at the computing process.

42 x 30cms (A2) - Sealed Giclee on Canvas

Once the traditional artwork is finished, he then transfers his art to a computer and then maniplulate and convert it into digital art. He hasn't listed out what kind of software that he uses to make his digital art but according to some websites he uses image manipulation software. To convert a painting into digital art, Alan has applied a printmaking process on an inkjet printer to make reproductions of a photograph of a painting. This led him to develop his own uniqe style through drawing on his knowledge of computer and commercial design techniques.

Lets look at his other computer-generated artwork

Sundomes - 36" x 12" Professional Laser Print

Room of Illusions 59.4 x 42cms - Sealed Giclee on Canvas

These two above artwork seemed quite interested from his gallery. I really like the room of illusions because is shows the that there are unlimited opportunties out there (sky background). The Sundome looks a bit dark to me because it shows an unstable path to a place and the picture looks very empty which could resemble the non-energectic environment.

There have been quite a few critical analysis of this artwork from critics on his site. I have seleced two statments:

"Brilliant and well thought out, the artist uses the obvious and yet almost un-noticed method of placing objects in such a way as to arrive at these surreal pieces, which appear to float."

"Not just another Digital artist, I would say Alan King is one of the best for abstract landscapes I have seen in a while. A Must see……."

He has also published many of this works in exhibtions and art gallery. For example, 'The Peakcock Gallery" which was an exhibition of Massurreal Artist.

References: Wikipedia , Alan King's Homepage

Week 2 - Self Reflective Journal

1. What are the most interesting ideas I learned this week from read and surfing? (Please list at least 3 precise points)

This week, we basically continued where we left off from the first week. We continued with the history of A.I. and we were presented with case studies of different A.I. artists. There were quite a few interesting points I discovered while reading and surfing. I wrote about equation art in my case study and I found one interesting point when compared with fractal art. Fractal art is more complex and chaotic using recursive amount of functions in a program. Whereas, equation art uses only one-time function to create its art. Therefore, fractal art stands out more when compared with equation art.

After Weizenbaum created ‘Eliza’, which was an interactive dialog with humans, people started to believe that computer/robot could do more than it really could which is kind of funny. Since this was newly introduced, some people thought that it wasn’t a computer talking but a human. One example is given in the notes, that Weizenbaum’s secretary asked Weizenbaun to leave the room for some privacy.

I searched more about Hubert Dreyfus and the books that he wrote, “What computers cant do” and “What computers still cant do”. I have read some reviews of the book and it got me interested. He criticizes four assumptions of A.I. research (biological, psychological, epistemological, and ontological assumptions) So it was pretty interesting to read more about his books on various sites and wikipedia.org

2. What are the muddiest points from your reading? (Please list at least 3 precise points)

As mentioned before, we continued where we left in week 1, there are really not many muddy points from my reading. I didn’t get how von Neumann architecture is related to A.I.? Shouldn’t it be related to computer system and architecture? How did it really contribute towards A.I.?

Even though I have this point in my interesting points, this still is quite muddy to me that how people could make assumptions about Eliza when they new that it was just a computer program. Even though it was new and had human like conversations, it is still hard to digest that people could be so easily fooled even after Weizenbaum published a book on it.

3. What do I want to read and learn more about? (Please list at least 3 precise points)

As we have gone briefly through the early stages of A.I., I would like to learn more about what lies ahead for A.I. and for its development (concerning art), say 50 years from now. Since A.I. may not be everyone-cup-of-tea, I would like to see and study about the various trends and future development of A.I. and Art.

I would like to learn more about A.I. programming and how we can apply that when making art. As we will be studying some basic A.I. programming concepts, I would like to further my knowledge on these concepts in the near future.

I would like to read more on people who have dedicated their lives into A.I. and art. This will be done in our case study reviews every week. I would like to research more on this topic so that I can really understand the current progress and the further trends in this field.


4. If I was a teacher, what questions would I ask my students on this week's reading material to see if he/she really understands? (Please list at least 3 precise questions)

- What is the difference between Neat A.I. and Scruffy A.I.?
- How was ELIZA different than Parry? What made Parry so special during the 1960’s?
- What was the A.I. programming language between 1960’s-1990’s and who invented it?

Equation Art

Equation Art - Patrick Sean

Aged 21, and a computer science graduate, his name is Patrick Sean Heddles. A young and enthusiast individual who worked on a holiday project on ray-tracer (path taken by light before reaching the eye). With little knowledge on the subject, he has to start from scratch. However, things didn’t work out and his project ultimately failed.

Although the project didn’t go as planned, he was able to create a new type of art, something that very few people have ever done (according to wikipedia.org, only Andrew McCann have done equation art). He was able to create abstract images through the ‘simple code’ and so it all started from there.

There isn’t much background information I could find on Patrick Sean, nor a portrait of himself. He has been writing poets, songs as well as a singer for a long time. Not only that, he has also been composing. Even though, he never got much into drawing or painting, he created something totally new, the “Equation Art”

So what exactly is equation art? Extracted from wikipedia.org “Equation art is the name for an art form producing images in which the colour of each point…is defined as a mathematical function…”

With limited information concerning equation art, I would like to make this study as descriptive as possible.

Continuing from where Patrick left of on the ray-trace project, he used simplified programming skills to create something different and new. He created a scenario such that the rays were perpendicular to the eyes helping him to rely on the distance of the mid-point. Such concept nearly ruined the whole project; however there is another twist in the tale. He worked on setting the brightness of each point was give functions to the X and Y coordinates on a C program. Filling in the coordinates of the axis with the color combination (set by equations to represent different colours such as red, green, etc), a number will be representing that particular pixel of the canvas. Therefore, depending on the size of the canvas, the more equations will be needed to create the art. This is basically the process of creating equation art. The following image was the first image he created from an equation/through this project.

Over the past three years, Patrick has created over 100 images using such equations. With the basic concept staying the same, it is the techniques and understanding that have grown from image to image. The algorithms change from each picture to another as they all produce different results. Here are some of his images that he has created using equation art.

Puppet 1 - 26 Jul 2005

Jewel - 15 Feb 2004

Since equation is newly developed and still relatively unkown, there aren't any review that I found over the net and therefore, I will critque the art myself. There were over 100 artwork on Patrick website and I chose the best ones. I like the colour combination used in the Jewel art because from the center of the picture, it basically spreads out in all directions. Whereas, in the puppet art, we can see that the background seems a bit dull compared to Jewel.

According to my search, the artist has providedinformation as to what kind of software they have used to create such kind of equation art. They use 'C' program to do all the coding because it runs faster than other compliers. With reference to two equation art artists, they have done Java programming helping them to input the different coordinates and the rest of the code in the complier.

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References: Patrick Web Site, Rebecca Skinner Site, Equation Art (Wikipedia)

Week 1 – Self Reflective Journal

What are the most interesting ideas I learned this week from the reading material?

Since this is my first time to go deep in the world of A.I., I’m starting to understand the history, some basic concepts of A.I. and most of the reading material was quite interesting. Here are some of the materials I found appealing:

- The first thing that comes to my mind about A.I. is that, it would be about robotics, computer technology and intelligences. However, as stated from wikipedia.org, A.I. can also focus on “animal studies” such as insects and apes for better understanding how intelligence could be organized. This is particularly interesting to me because it shows the development of A.I. seeking expansion from not only human-based but also towards animal and nature based.

- The growth of A.I over the past five decades has been quite significant. Starting from the 1950’s when Alan Turing introduced the ‘Turing Test’ (machine to perform human-like conversations) until recently DARPA Grand Challenge (which is a competition for driverless cars) or even the Checkmate Challenge (a computer based chess program), we can see that A.I. has come a long way and yet have to go so far. Of course, development of A.I. have started way before the 1950’s and even today, with the help of internet, sites such as A.L.I.C.E and Ask Jeeves provide simple yet fascinating forms of A.I.

What are the muddiest points from the reading material?

During my reading, there weren’t many muddiest points as the materials provided were quite self-explanatory as well as very descriptive. However, there was one point that caught my eye:

- According to wikipedia.org, the development of A.I. during the 1980’s seemed to slow down and government organizations didn’t want to fund A.I. projects. As we know, advancement in A.I. takes lot of funding from sources for machines and other equipment and this led to the A.I. winter. After such consistent development in the A.I. field throughout the years, I just couldn’t digest why people wouldn’t want to see more in this field?

What are my next steps in studying?

My next steps in preparing and studying for this course would to try to read through various sources to understanding more on the implementation of A.I. and art. The first week’s reading material was based more on the history and background of A.I. So I want to understand how art got into business with intelligence. Also, by doing case studies of different individuals who have/are practicing A.I. and Art, I believe this is a unique way to learn about the subject through real life cases.

If I was a teacher, what questions would I ask my students on this subject?

- How would you see the development of A.I. and Art from 50 years from now? Do you think there will be an increase or decrease in the growth towards A.I. and Art?
- Why do you think that it necessary/important to use art with A.I. where as there are many ways of creating art? Are there any advantages or disadvantages when doing so?
- Can A.I. be programmed into developing their own thoughts/expressions as to create art?

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