Generative art is post-conceptual art that has been created (in whole or in part) with the use of an autonomous system. An autonomous system in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that would otherwise require decisions made directly by the artist. In some cases the human creator may claim that the generative system represents their own artistic idea, and in others that the system takes on the role of the creator.
"Generative art" often refers to algorithmic art (algorithmically determined computer generated artwork) and synthetic media (general term for any algorithmically generated media), but artists can also make generative art using systems of chemistry, biology, mechanics and robotics, smart materials, manual randomization, mathematics, data mapping, symmetry, and tiling.
Generative algorithms, algorithms programmed to produce artistic works through predefined rules, stochastic methods, or procedural logic, often yielding dynamic, unique, and contextually adaptable outputs—are central to many of these practices.
History
The use of the word "generative" in the discussion of art has developed over time. The use of "Artificial DNA" defines a generative approach to art focused on the construction of a system able to generate unpredictable events, all with a recognizable common character. The use of autonomous systems, required by some contemporary definitions, focuses a generative approach where the controls are strongly reduced. This approach is also named "emergent". Margaret Boden and Ernest Edmonds have noted the use of the term "generative art" in the broad context of automated computer graphics in the 1960s, beginning with artwork exhibited by Georg Nees and Frieder Nake in 1965: A. Michael Noll did his initial computer art, combining randomness with order, in 1962,"Patterns by 7090," Bell Telephone Laboratories Technical Memorandum, TM-62-1234-14, August 28, 1962, by A. Michael Noll. and exhibited it along with works by Bell Julesz in 1965."The Howard Wise Gallery Show (1965): A 50th-Anniversary Memoir," LEONARDO, Vol. 49, No. 3 (June 2016), pp. 232-239.
The first such exhibition showed the work of Nees in February 1965, which some claim was titled "Generative Computergrafik". While Nees does not himself remember, this was the title of his doctoral thesis published a few years later. The correct title of the first exhibition and catalog was "computer-grafik".Ness, Georg; Bense, Max: computer-grafik; Edition Rot 19; Stuttgart, 1965. "Generative art" and related terms was in common use by several other early computer artists around this time, including Manfred Mohr and Ken Knowlton. Vera Molnár (born 1924) is a French media artist of Hungarian origin. Molnar is widely considered to be a pioneer of generative art, and is also one of the first women to use computers in her art practice.
The term "Generative Art" with the meaning of dynamic artwork-systems able to generate multiple artwork-events was clearly used the first time for the "Generative Art" conference in Milan in 1998. The term has also been used to describe geometric abstract art where simple elements are repeated, transformed, or varied to generate more complex forms. Thus defined, generative art was practiced by the Argentinian artists Eduardo Mac Entyre and Miguel Ángel Vidal in the late 1960s. In 1972 the Romanian-born Paul Neagu created the Generative Art Group in Britain. It was populated exclusively by Neagu using aliases such as "Hunsy Belmood" and "Edward Larsocchi". In 1972 Neagu gave a lecture titled 'Generative Art Forms' at the Queen's University, Belfast Festival.Osborne, Harold, ed. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Art, Oxford; New York: Oxford University PressWalker, J. A. Glossary of art, architecture, and design since 1945 (3rd ed.), London; Boston: Library Association Publishing; G.K. Hall.
In 1970 the School of the Art Institute of Chicago created a department called Generative Systems. As described by Sonia Landy Sheridan the focus was on art practices using the then new technologies for the capture, inter-machine transfer, printing and transmission of images, as well as the exploration of the aspect of time in the transformation of image information. Also noteworthy is John Dunn, first a student and then a collaborator of Sheridan.Sheridan, Sonia Landy. Generative Systems versus Copy Art: A Clarification of Terms and Ideas, Leonardo, 16(2), 1983.
In 1988 ClauserClauser, H. R. Towards a Dynamic, Generative Computer Art, Leonardo, 21(2), 1988. identified the aspect of systemic autonomy as a critical element in generative art:
In 1989 Celestino Soddu defined the Generative Design approach to Architecture and Town Design in his book Citta' Aleatorie.Soddu, C. Citta' Aleatorie, Masson Publisher 1989 ""
In 1989 Franke referred to "generative mathematics" as "the study of mathematical operations suitable for generating artistic images."Franke, H. W.Mathematics As an Artistic-Generative Principle, Leonardo, Supplemental Issue, 1989.
From the mid-1990s Brian Eno popularized the terms generative music and generative systems, making a connection with earlier experimental music by Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass.Eno, B. Generative Music, In Motion Magazine
From the end of the 20th century, communities of generative artists, designers, musicians and theoreticians began to meet, forming cross-disciplinary perspectives. The first meeting about generative Art was in 1998, at the inaugural International Generative Art conference at Politecnico di Milano University, Italy.Soddu, C. and Colabella, E. ed.s "Generative Art", Dedalo In Australia, the Iterate conference on generative systems in the electronic arts followed in 1999. On-line discussion has centered around the eu-gene mailing list, which began late 1999, and has hosted much of the debate which has defined the field.Philip Galanter What is Generative Art? Complexity theory as a context for art theory, 2003 International Conference on Generative Art These activities have more recently been joined by the Generator.x conference in Berlin starting in 2005. In 2012 the new journal GASATHJ, Generative Art Science and Technology Hard Journal was founded by Celestino Soddu and Enrica ColabellaGASATHJ jointing several generative artists and scientists in the editorial board.
Some have argued that as a result of this engagement across disciplinary boundaries, the community has converged on a shared meaning of the term. As Boden and Edmonds put it in 2011:
In the call of the Generative Art conferences in Milan (annually starting from 1998), the definition of Generative Art by Celestino Soddu:
Discussion on the eu-gene mailing list was framed by the following definition by Adrian Ward from 1999:
A similar definition is provided by Philip Galanter:
Around the 2020s, generative AI models learned to imitate the distinct style of particular authors. For example, a generative image model such as Stable Diffusion is able to model the stylistic characteristics of an artist like Pablo Picasso (including his particular brush strokes, use of colour, perspective, and so on), and a user can engineer a prompt such as "an astronaut riding a horse, by Picasso" to cause the model to generate a novel image applying the artist's style to an arbitrary subject. Generative image models have received significant backlash from artists who object to their style being imitated without their permission, arguing that this harms their ability to profit from their own work.
The emergence of text-to-image generative AI systems has expanded debates over authorship, copyright, and artistic labor. The main issues in these debates include the eligibility of AI-generated outputs for copyright protection and the legal and ethical questions of using existing copyrighted works as training data for generative AI systems.
Types
Music
Johann Kirnberger's Musikalisches Würfelspiel ("Musical Dice Game") of 1757 is considered an early example of a generative system based on randomness. Dice were used to select musical sequences from a numbered pool of previously composed phrases. This system provided a balance of order and disorder. The structure was based on an element of order on one hand, and disorder on the other.Nierhaus, Gerhard (2009). Algorithmic Composition: Paradigms of Automated Music Generation, pp. 36 & 38n7. .
The fugues of J.S. Bach could be considered generative, in that there is a strict underlying process that is followed by the composer. Similarly, serialism follows strict procedures which, in some cases, can be set up to generate entire compositions with limited human intervention.Lerdahl, Fred. 1988. "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems". In Generative Processes in Music, ed. John Sloboda. Oxford University Press. Reprinted in Contemporary Music Review 6, no. 2 (1992):97–121.Lerdahl, Fred, and Ray Jackendoff. 1983. A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. MIT Press.
Composers such as John Cage,Christiane Paul Digital Art, Thames & Hudson. Farmers Manual, and Brian Eno have used generative systems in their works.
Visual art The artist Ellsworth Kelly created paintings by using chance operations to assign colors in a grid. He also created works on paper that he then cut into strips or squares and reassembled using chance operations to determine placement.Yve-Alain Bois, Jack Cowart, Alfred Pacquement Ellsworth Kelly: The Years in France, 1948-1954, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, Prestel, p. 23-26
Artists such as Hans Haacke have explored processes of physical and social systems in artistic context. François Morellet has used both highly ordered and highly disordered systems in his artwork. Some of his paintings feature regular systems of radial or parallel lines to create Moiré patterns. In other works he has used chance operations to determine the coloration of grids.Tate Online Article about François MorelletGrace Glueck "Francois Morellet, Austere Abtractionism", New York Times, Feb. 22, 1985 Sol LeWitt created generative art in the form of systems expressed in natural language and systems of geometric permutation. Harold Cohen's AARON system is a longstanding project combining software artificial intelligence with robotic painting devices to create physical artifacts.Biography of Harold Cohen Harold Cohen Steina and Woody Vasulka are video art pioneers who used analog video feedback to create generative art. Video feedback is now cited as an example of deterministic chaos, and the early explorations by the Vasulkas anticipated contemporary science by many years. Software systems exploiting evolutionary computing to create visual form include those created by Scott Draves and Karl Sims. The digital artist Joseph Nechvatal has exploited models of viral contagion.Bruce Wands Art of the Digital Age, London: Thames & Hudson, p. 65 Autopoiesis by Ken Rinaldo includes fifteen musical and robotic sculptures that interact with the public and modify their behaviors based on both the presence of the participants and each other. Jean-Pierre Hebert and Roman Verostko are founding members of the Algorists, a group of artists who create their own algorithms to create art. A. Michael Noll, of Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., programmed computer art using mathematical equations and programmed randomness, starting in 1962.A. Michael Noll, "The Digital Computer as a Creative Medium," IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 4, No. 10, (October 1967), pp. 89-95; and "Computers and the Visual Arts," Design and Planning 2: Computers in Design and Communication (Edited by Martin Krampen and Peter Seitz), Hastings House, Publishers, Inc.: New York (1967), pp. 65-79.