Generative art

Generative art refers to art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system. An autonomous system in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that would otherwise require decisions made directly by the artist. In some cases the human creator may claim that the generative system represents their own artistic idea, and in others that the system takes on the role of the creator.

"Generative art" is often used to refer to algorithmic art (computer generated artwork that is algorithmically determined). But generative art can also be made using systems of chemistry, biology, mechanics and robotics, smart materials, manual randomization, mathematics, data mapping, symmetry, tiling, and more.

The use of the word "generative" in the discussion of art has developed over time. The use of "Artificial DNA" defines a generative approach to art focused on the construction of a system able to generate unpredictable events, all with a recognizable common character. The use of autonomous systems, required by some contemporary definitions, focuses a generative approach where the controls are strongly reduced. This approach is also named "emergent". Margaret Boden and Ernest Edmonds have noted the use of the term "generative art" in the broad context of automated computer graphics in the 1960s, beginning with artwork exhibited by Georg Nees and Frieder Nake in 1965:

The terms "generative art" and "computer art" have been used in tandem, and more or less interchangeably, since the very earliest days.

The first such exhibition showed the work of Nees in February 1965, which some claim was titled "Generative Computergrafik". While Nees does not himself remember, this was the title of his doctoral thesis published a few years later. The correct title of the first exhibition and catalog was "computer-grafik". "Generative art" and related terms was in common use by several other early computer artists around this time, including Manfred Mohr. The term "Generative Art" with the meaning of dynamic artwork-systems able to generate multiple artwork-events was clearly used the first time for the "Generative Art" conference in Milan in 1998.

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