aarnavp – LO 02 Generative Art

In the topic of Generative Art, I was especially inspired by Mitchell Whitelaw’s “Generative Heritage” pieces on New Castle, UK. Strictly from an anthropological standpoint, there is a lot of significance to the concept Whitelaw intends on emulating, as he intends on capturing the various facets of history embedded within this place as a “digital artifact.” Moreover, there is this idea of modernizing the practice of “collaging” in a way that effectively speaks more to the significance of the content. Mitchell talks about this idea of automation simplifying all the possible permutations of a design, whereas traditional art methods would involve a lot more selectability/omission of content. While this may apparently speak to the artists’ decisions, it diminishes the ability to emphasize the concept, which is the history of New Castle. This project especially changed my outlook on generative art, as it represents the idea of possibility as opposed to “meaningless art.”

Mitchell discussed part of the algorithm, which takes 5 source images from a dataset of 2000. The randomly selected images are then compositionally arranged with “semi-random” patterns/rules that allow for formal visual elements (such as unity and repetition) which create the aesthetic digital collages. The images’ opacities are all lowered for more interaction between the images. 

While the process may seem extremely predetermined/predictable, there were several creative choices made within the code that correlate to artistic choices one would make on a physical medium. One method is that the compositor treats images differently depending on the textures/qualities of the material of images – lineweight drawings are treated in a different manner than photographic artifacts, which result in appropriate digital collaging that properly curates elements from the both of them.