
Context Free Art - luu
http://www.contextfreeart.org/
======
the_duck
To me, computer generated art always feels less remarkable than traditional
art. If you present me with two paintings that are identical, pixel for pixel,
and tell me that one is human authored and the other computer authored, I'd be
less interested in the computer authored one. I'd spend less time thinking
about it.

I always found this fact fascinating. Why would I attribute different levels
of worth to two artifacts that were totally identical, save for their method
of construction?

I didn't have a good answer to this until I read a book by aesthetician Dennis
Dutton (The Art Instinct). Dutton presents a 12 factor model of art, and
claims that artifacts exhibiting all 12 criteria tend to be unambiguously
judged as "valid art", while artifacts that miss some but exhibit most are
considered "edge cases", things that reasonable people can dispute the
artistic validity of.

One of Dutton's 12 criteria is "expressive individuality". Most art objects
are the products of a single person's imagination. Computer generated art
tends to lack this trait, and this, I think, is why it feels less valid than
human-made art.

Here's an outline of the 12-factor model:
[http://www.aristos.org/aris-10/dutton.htm](http://www.aristos.org/aris-10/dutton.htm)

~~~
qdot76367
"Computer generated art tends to lack expressive individuality"

That's a pretty massive blanket statement to apply to a whole field of art.

"I think, is why it feels less valid than human-made art."

You realize there's still a human making the art, right? It's not like a
computer rendered piece is of the computer's will. A painting isn't of the
paint's will.

Some people paint, some people sculpt, some people make electrons do a whole
bunch of math really fast. You can't always let means overrule intention.

~~~
the_duck
I'm talking about cases where human involvement is minimal. If all I need to
do to make a painting is press the "run" button, there's not much intention
there. I haven't expressed anything.

You could certainly make the case for "expressive individuality" in the
program making the art, especially if it was written by just one person. But
computer programs, IMHO, fail the "valid art" test for other reasons. Of
Dutton's twelve criteria they miss at least two: representation (6) and
emotional saturation (9).

~~~
qdot76367
" If all I need to do to make a painting is press the "run" button, there's
not much intention there."

If all I need to do to kill another person is press the "run" button, there's
not much intention there.

Sure, that'd be severe exaggeration in most cases, but we're talking about
art, and that art has happened (See the works of yoko ono
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYJ3dPwa2tI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYJ3dPwa2tI)),
wafaa bilal
([http://wafaabilal.com/html/shootAnIraqi.html](http://wafaabilal.com/html/shootAnIraqi.html)),
etc.) Are you both psychic AND time traveling in order to be able to tell what
someone was thinking when they hit that button? I realize this puts me in the
place of defending art /I/ personally don't like, but that "valid art" term is
just the worst.

There are also types of art that are all about hitting the button. For
instance, field recording. Wonderful article on it at
[http://www.factmag.com/2014/11/18/a-beginners-guide-to-
field...](http://www.factmag.com/2014/11/18/a-beginners-guide-to-field-
recording/), but the quote from Yan Jun I reference the most is:

\--

“There is no such thing as documenting a reality,” he tells me, “There is no
divide between documenting and creating. The point is I don’t build dreams
neither by field recording nor by playing my electronics instruments or
computer. To choose equipments, choose position and push record button are
acts of composing. Tiny meaningless noises can be a beautiful composition. To
summarise I can use this equation – I push the record button = someone making
a musique concréte piece = Bach.”

\--

Seriously. I'm happy you read a book about art, and that's not sarcastic. Most
people won't ever put that much time into thinking about art, and it's cool
you did. Just be careful about how much credit you give anything that ever
uses the term "Valid Art".

~~~
jholman
I think you're making the same category of error of which you accuse the_duck,
albeit in the opposite direction, when you say "that art has happened" or
claiming that field recording is art, or reverently quoting Yan Jun drawing an
equivalence between pushing a record button and Bach. You dropped the word
"valid", but you're still making assertions about what is and is not art.

Collectively, humans don't always agree about what is art. One option is to
simply always be agnostic about what is and is not art. Then there's no
argument.

Another option is to claim that there does exist some dividing line. And if
you want to come to an _agreement_ with anyone about that dividing line, it's
hilariously delusional to miss the fact that there does not exist a broad
consensus about when it is appropriate to use that word, and you need to
_construct_ that agreement. And if you want to do that, the idea of "valid
art" is essential; blithely saying "that art has happened" is disingenuous at
best.

Me, I choose to be agnostic about what is art. I don't understand the value of
agreeing about it (except, perhaps, for the purpose of bureaucratic allocation
of grants and funding). But even having taken that position, Dutton's ideas
about a 12-factor model seem pretty interesting, as a sociological
investigation of what other criteria other humans seem to use.

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phirschybar
This guy: [http://www.joshuadavis.com/](http://www.joshuadavis.com/) is the
master of computer generated art.

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themodelplumber
Is there a big table somewhere that compares all these? Processing, P5,
Nodebox versions, this one, etc.

~~~
ics
What exactly would you want to see compared? The same or similar examples for
code comparison? "Features" or libraries?

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opaqe
I used this to teach myself to code for the first time. It felt very natural
just exploring and getting immediate visual feedback with the images I
generated. I still use it to generate my desktop background images.

~~~
GhotiFish
I _love_ these styles of backgrounds, and would be very interested if you have
a gallery. I personally use blender to generate backgrounds in this style[1].
I keep putting off exploring this tool because I have difficulty parsing the
syntax.

1\. [http://imgur.com/a/AaHGw](http://imgur.com/a/AaHGw)

~~~
Everlag
Those blender backgrounds are just the style I enjoy. Could you point me to a
tutorial or similar on generating them?

~~~
GhotiFish
I used very different techniques for each of them, sorry but I didn't base
these on any tutorial. I made each of them after I had learned something about
blender I wanted to try, or I had an idea I thought I could get away with.

I wanted to play around with more complex texture mapping and uv projection
for the first one, I tested out a way to use the array modifier to make Escher
style tiles, I wanted to test the ways I could make flat facets with greater
than 3 sides using the new decimate options, render and rig an STL from
openSCAD, or work with new wireframe options and use dupliverts, respectively.

It's heartening to know that other people out there share my sense of
aesthetic, though!

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juliendorra
Context Free Art is really nice to play with because of its integrated editor-
viewer and the immediacy, and we even used it a little during our first Coding
Goûter sessions with kids. The main obstacle we found when trying to use it
with beginners (kids and adults) is the lack of code example that are easy to
tweak and build upon (ie. cool but simple, not too optimized, and with holes
to fill). Most examples are prowess, very clever code. It makes for great
demos but it's less useful as a learning code for beginners.

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nness
Hehehe, my old gallery from years back is still available on the site:
[http://www.contextfreeart.org/gallery/search.php?by=lazymoon](http://www.contextfreeart.org/gallery/search.php?by=lazymoon)

I was lucky enough to also have my work included in their first book. Still
have a copy on my shelf.

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endergen
Aza Raskin made an in browser version of this a few years back:
[http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/contextfreejs-algorithm-
ink-...](http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/contextfreejs-algorithm-ink-making-
art-with-javascript/)

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rhodri
there's some beautiful work here, plus code
[http://www.complexification.net/gallery/](http://www.complexification.net/gallery/)

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zackmorris
Is there are human language plugin for this (or something similar)?

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j2kun
I never know how to feel about mathematically/programmatically generated art.
Despite having done a bit myself, I never think it actually looks good or
artistic.

~~~
Ono-Sendai
Check out our product here:
[http://chaoticafractals.com/](http://chaoticafractals.com/)

There are a lot of very aesthetic works:
[http://chaoticafractals.com/gallery](http://chaoticafractals.com/gallery)

~~~
chubot
A lot of these have very striking color schemes, e.g.:

[http://chaoticafractals.com/art/FarDareisMai](http://chaoticafractals.com/art/FarDareisMai)

Are these colors mathematically generated, or by a the artist?

~~~
Ono-Sendai
The colour palette is selected by the artist. The mathematical rules governing
the fractal then uses those colours, mixing together different colours from
the palette based on the mathematical transformation chosen.

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xigency
Very cool. Reminds me of IFS fractals and a book I read, "Fractals
Everywhere," which discussed them.

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fragglesmock
[http://electricsheep.org](http://electricsheep.org)

