Author / wblut

If you’ve seen any real­ity zoo/wild-life pro­gram you’ll rec­og­nize this. Five min­utes into the show you’re con­fronted with a wounded, mag­nif­i­cent ani­mal, held in cap­tiv­ity so its care­tak­ers can nur­ture and feed it. And inevitably, after three com­mer­cial breaks, they release it, teary-eyed, back into the wild.

Choices, the core of generative art, the code making decisions instead of the artist. The artist relinquishing control.

What is choice?

Recently, during an online discussion about generative art, determinism, emergence, and the like, I felt like we were running in circles. The problem seemed to be different interpretations of “predictability” and it’s relationship to determinism.

From my very first steps with processing, I’ve always been fas­ci­nated by the divi­sion of space, vol­umes and sur­faces. In ret­ro­spect, many of my con­structs can be seen as explo­rations of this theme.