Process

In an attempt to better articulate my working practices today, a brief overview of my methodology from the last 25 years might provide some meaningful context.

Early work :: Geometric meter

From the mid 90s to about 10 years ago my art was entirely constructed using simple euclidean geometry. The geometry was not used to structure an additional arbitrary layer of art, but the geometric systems I evolved formed the very fabric of every transition and boundary within the art composition. With this method I hoped to create a metered system to order my compositional space in an equivalent way to how tempo and harmonics structures the abstract world of sound in music composition.

Semi generative art

Because my pre-genererative work was so constrained and metered by a definable compositional rule set and grammar I call it semi-generative. The randomness in this system of creation was my own intuition. Each new intuitive starting point is iterated over using the ruleset and a composition is born, not unlike a purely generative output using a script. In one sense, I do not feel there is such a large distinction between what we might call scripted generative and more conventional methods of making art. An artist who evolves a style and subject over many decades is essentially creating a visual grammar and vocabulary of primitives to express their subject. Crafting an algorithm for me at least is the same process.

New generative investigations

During the last 10 years my focus has shifted towards creating art from code and at the same time building visualization tools to explore a particular geometric object that’s fascinated me for over 20 years. The primitive building block of this object I call the Protofield.

Layering and changing the harmonic properties of these fields give rise to quasi periodic interference patterns. When the results of these investigations are visually rich and intriguing I often build new algorithms to explore the visual properties that excite me.

The primary goal of the work is not always to make art, but sometimes just to build better intuitions about the nature of the geometric objects and the requirements of the tools I need to build to explore them further. Like this, sometimes the geometry informs the art and sometimes the art informs the geometry. Because I cannot always call it art or an academic study I feel like I’m exploring an undefined space with an undefined goal. When I pause and look at my complete body of work through the lens of a single discipline I always find it lacking, but when viewed as a journey that weaves between disciplines and a synthesis of ideas and practices I am always intrigued and artistically rejuvenated by the strange territory I have traversed. Simultaneous to this is always an intuitive movement, born from silent meditation and an impulse not to know where I am going or where I have already been.

Visual language :: Subject - March 10th 2022

As I see it, one of the challenges of making expressive generative art is finding a meaningful ‘subject’. Here, I’m going to draw a distinction between a subject and artistic language although there is a sense in mature art in which the two are completely enmeshed and cannot be teased apart. A subject as I am defining it is an external source of information. Not a data set specifically as the information could be an emotion, a message, a text, a cultural movement or many other things conceptual or physical in nature. Visual language as I am defining it is visual marks and the grammar that tend to constrain the organization and relationship of those marks in a compositional and textual way.

Visual language in this sense, evolved by artists throughout time, is not unlike a generative algorithm. Until the advent of computers however that algorithm was not explicitly defiable in code, but embodied in the act of creation, in the medium and in the aesthetic impulse of the artist. Contrary to a casual notion of creativity, limitation is the key to expression. Without very tight constraints any artist has no distinct style, no visual language. Often we adopt the stylistic constraints of our time without even being conscious of it. Typically, artists of today do not adopt the visual language and mediums of the past but we do think we are on this creative knife edge of expressing something entirely fresh, but we are not creating in a vacuum. Everything we see and experience sets up and contextualizes the languages we are co-creating in this artistic epoch.

Now that I have defined my concept of ‘visual language’, I want to talk about the relationship between visual language and ‘subject’. I would argue that an artist doesn’t just use visual language to express a subject, but uses the language to think about and explore a subject. An artistic language provides us another means to abstract our reality to give it meaning and also access our inner emotional and even transcendental worlds. Plato reportedly said that geometry was the purest philosophical language. We also have the saying - ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’. I believe our artistic language and even tools we use to create it are an extension of our minds that give us purview to intuitions we may not have access to when relying on words alone.

For me, the ‘subject’, is an external source and a field of investigation that provides a rich seam of visual ideas, intuition and mystery. I feel if the subject is shallow, then visual poetry and surprise is not readily forthcoming. There is a natural creative flow that comes from being in relationship with a subject that fascinates us and is an expressive proxy for deeper truths about ourselves. Investigate one thing completely and in it you will find both no absolute reality and the entire universe. The subject that I have found that has artistically captivated my attention for over 20 years is a simple geometric object that can be defined as a waveform primitive. I will go on to describe why I find this primitive so intriguing in the coming days.

The aristic challenge of the ArtBlocks model, as I understand it

For the artist wishing to design for the ArtBlocks model we are presented with what appears to be new creative challenges and also new creative opportunities.For as long as there have been computers artists have made art from code, this is not the real challenge here. The challenge for theArtBlocks artist is to craft an algorithm that is able to construct 1000+ consecutive outputs with a high degree of distinguishability; without making outputs with compromised artistic integrity and all expressing the same unified artistic vision. This challenge in terms of medium and technical methodology is a new one, however it is also a reconfiguration of the age-old artistic challenge of creating variety within unity.

In the 7th century when oil paint was first adopted it radically changed the way art was made, the way it looked and the way it was sold. It also changed what subjects artists could and wanted to express. NFT and art from code, may have a similar degree of transformation of the way art is made, sold and perceived. It strikes me that the ArtBlocks model is creating a sub genre within that general movement that will nurture and facilitate and to some degree force a new type of artwork. An artwork that’s an expression of a greater whole. The greater whole being the algorithm and ruleset that created it.

For reasons that I hope will become clear I ask the reader to hold the coming analogy lightly and also imagine that in 3000 years the Ethereum block chain has been erased.An archaeologist at this time could potentially reverse engineer a digitally fossilized generative Art output in a similar way that a physicist today attempts to divine the laws-of-nature. Maybe even, future people time do this as a hobby and watch shows called Ancient Algorithms.

This, of course, is a little absurd, but flipping the process might give us some insight into levels of artistic sophistication presented in an ArtBlocks artwork set. In the future I wonder if there will be a perceived correlation between the difficulty and steps needed to get a sense of an algorithm from the outputs and the artistic sophistication of that algorithm. I say this because nature shows us the greatest beauty contains the greatest mysteries. So I guess I’m saying that there is a sense in which the generative artist is playing God. They are crafting their laws of nature and letting the universe run. How rich, varied and harmonious and maybe unexpected the result will point to the true creativity and inspiration that went into the genesis of those laws.