

What’s Hot in the Art World? Algorithms - alexis
http://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-hot-in-the-art-world-algorithms-1432687554#win

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tromp
Lambda diagrams
([http://tromp.github.io/cl/diagrams.html](http://tromp.github.io/cl/diagrams.html))
offer an artistic depiction of algorithms. Here is, for instance, a prime
number sieve:

    
    
        ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
        ┬─┬───────────────────────────────────┬──── ────┬
        │ │ ┬─┬ ────┬─┬────────────────────── ┼───┬ ┬───┼
        │ │ └─┤ ────┼─┼───────────────────┬── ┼───┼ │ ┬ │
        │ │   │ ┬───┼─┼───────────────────┼── ┼─┬─┼ │ ┼ │
        │ │   │ │ ─ ┼─┼─┬─────┬──── ──────┼─┬ │ ├─┘ └─┤ │
        │ │   │ │ ┬ └─┤ │ ┬─┬ ┼─┬─┬ ──┬───┼─┼ ├─┘     ├─┘
        │ │   │ └─┤   └─┤ └─┤ │ ├─┘ ──┼─┬─┼─┼ │       │  
        │ │   │   │     │   │ ├─┘   ┬─┼─┼─┼─┼ │       │  
        │ │   │   │     │   ├─┘     └─┤ │ ├─┘ │       │  
        │ │   │   │     └───┤         │ ├─┘   │       │  
        │ │   │   │         │         ├─┘     │       │  
        │ │   │   │         ├─────────┘       │       │  
        │ │   │   ├─────────┘                 │       │  
        │ │   └───┤                           │       │  
        │ │       ├───────────────────────────┘       │  
        │ ├───────┘                                   │  
        └─┤                                           │  
          └───────────────────────────────────────────┘

~~~
ola
Very beautiful, the notation looks similar to Frege's concept script
[https://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~snburris/htdocs/scav/frege/fr...](https://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~snburris/htdocs/scav/frege/frege.html)

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wanderingstan
This is good, interesting news. Many years ago I did some work combining
calligraphy and code, but found that art-people didn't appreciate algorithms
and code-people didn't appreciate art.

Here's a card I made for a friend who said that rc4 was "the most important
algorithm that will fit on one page":
[http://i.imgur.com/TUeJS7y.png](http://i.imgur.com/TUeJS7y.png)

~~~
darkmighty
Pardon the bluntness, but I think you're missing the point. Algorithms have
artistic value for what they represent -- and not because of the font,
programming language or even social language they're written on. It's like
taking the famous formula "E=mc²" and write it in a cryptic font to make it
'artful'. For me, the beauty is in the simple (and amazing!) meaning that mass
and energy are equivalent. Making the formula legible and neat highlights
that, in my opinion.

~~~
dagw
_Algorithms have artistic value for what they represent -- and not because of
the font_

That is true for all great art though. The Art is not the pretty picture but
what the picture represents and symbolises, the pretty picture is just the
medium used to try to present that.

~~~
darkmighty
I believe that, to some degree, we can compatimentalize the beauty in the
_representation_ and the _content_.

Take a discernment test which I would call a "substitution test": if you
replace the content and the artistic value is more or less unchanged, I claim
the representation is the highlight; if replacing the content destroys the
values I claim the content is the highlight.

For example, for a picture of Monet, if you swap the scenery for another
similar one while maintaining the style not all value is lost. However, if you
take E=MC^2 and replace that with B=CD^3, the value vanishes.

I claim that algorithms have a great value in terms "content", and picturing
it in illegible text highlights instead a "representation" (since you could
replace that code with any other algo) -- missing the point.

~~~
wanderingstan
Since I'm stuck late coding tonight, a little art talk is fun. :)

Representation and content are not so easily separated. (Marcel Duchamp is all
over this.) And to the extent that this division exists, they can combine in a
cumulative way; great representation with great content.

My field, calligraphy, is keenly aware of the "content problem". (My humble
works[1]) Are the great Chinese calligraphers "missing the point" of the poems
in their works when the resulting script is illegible to most?

Especially in the west, it seems people take writing and letters so much for
granted that they assume the __only __appropriate function is for them to be
easily interpreted. (Before abstract art, people held similar ideas that the
purpose of painting was to easily convey what the artist had seen.) Perhaps in
a similar vein, you 're saying that the only appropriate use of algorithms in
a piece of art is for them to be communicated clearly and faithfully?

We are in agreement that algorithms have great value in terms of content. And
I'm excited that the art world is growing aware of the "value" of algorithms.
It's been my impression that the art world was stuck too long on the physical
forms of computing technology (the cases, the monitors, the phones, the wires,
the blinking lights), so it's exciting to see how artists will interpret the
beauty of algorithms themselves.

Okay, now back to coding.

EDIT:

Some beautiful Chinese calligraphy:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy#/media/Fil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy#/media/File:Mi_Fu-
On_Calligraphy.jpg)

[1] [http://instagram.com/wanderingstan/](http://instagram.com/wanderingstan/)

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damian2000
I thought this was going to be art generated by algorithms...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_art](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_art)

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sp332
There's got to be some interesting copyright licensing discussions going on
there. Like when Don Knuth declared in 2004 that MacPaint was "the best
program ever written", but it took until 2010 to convince Apple to release the
source code.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100721233205/http://www.busine...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100721233205/http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2010/07/apple_donates_macpaint_source_code_to_computer_history_museum.html)

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abecedarius
[https://www.artsy.net/auction/the-algorithm-
auction](https://www.artsy.net/auction/the-algorithm-auction) seems to be the
auction in question.

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prawn
A friend of mine won a poster design competition 10 or so years ago with an
entry that was scripted in Flash (ActionScript, or whatever it was). From
memory, he had a few other pieces created in the same way, playing around with
various functions. Ahead of his time!

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Dewie3
> Simply put, an algorithm is a procedure for a process,

"Procedure for a process". That's very vague. Might as well write "method of
doing".

~~~
javert
Method to compute a result.

More technically, method to produce or alter a piece of data.

(Because we should not neglect algorithms that operate on data structures.)

~~~
SixSigma
An infinite loop is an algorithm. No result required.

