Reading Response
Part I: What is Generative Art?
In personal understanding, Generative Art is a type of art that is created under indirect human control, in which it consists three different types of process: randomness, instructions, and the trace of nature. First, Randomness allows an art to be generated into different outputs with random selection of the value of the variables. Second, a generative artwork can be produced by setting up the rules and instructions that partially integrate into the final picture of the work, in which the output of the art can be influenced by a few factors that follows the rule. Finally, a generative artwork can be something that is from by the natural processes and the interactions that happen in the system. Comparing the computational generative art with my mini projects, I found a few similarities and differences. Similar to generative art, my Mini Project 2, My Flower, is an artwork that is constructed with the rules I created. The art allows my viewer to draw the leaves of the flower with their control of mouse. In other words, my Mini Project 2 is to be completed by both the rule and the viewers that follows the rule, in which the outcome cannot be always predicted. In contrast, both of my Mini Projects lacks randomness and the interaction with natural systems. My first project is created with the rules that directly determine the output, and there is no randomness in generating the values of the variables. Therefore, my first mini project cannot be fully considered as a type of generative art.
Part II: My Drawing System
- Rules:
- Start the drawing with 5 vertical lines in 5 random colors with the same length on the top left corner of a paper
- Moving in right direction draw 5 horizontal lines in 5 colors used in the first step but in different orders.
- Right beside the second step, draw another 5 vertical lines in 5 colors with the same length
- Repeat steps 1, 2, and 3 until you fill up the paper.
- Drawing Result:
Since this drawing is made by following the rules that I made, and the final result cannot be fully controlled or predicted, I consider it as a generative art work. Throughout the drawing process, I draw the line in random color orders and the colors are picked randomly from the random color generator. The result is interesting for me since I only expect the drawing to be in a simple repeated pattern, but overall, it gives me a formation of a colorful eye tricking grid as a whole. These unexpected results is due to the randomness in the rules, here, it is the selection of the color and the order of the color in each set of the pattern.
- Thought process:
- I started the thought process by visualizing the framework of the final result to be squared lines and grids. To make my rules and result more interesting, I decided to include an element of generative art, randomness, into my rules through the selection and the order of the colors. Part of this art experiment is controllable: My rules can only result into a repeated patterns made with lines. Balancing with the unpredictability in my experiment, the unpredictable colors and overall color formation/order of the pattern play an important role in producing the unexpected final result.