Generative Artworks (software-based)

 

EXPOSED, Colours, 2013

 

 

Generative artwork (shown in lightbox)
Duration – infinite
Exhibition – lightbox or projection
Soundtrack – silent

 

Due to its algorithmic chance procedures, each 3 hour cycle of this software-based artwork is filled with fresh variation. It transcends categorization as a time-based art form because it has no measurable duration as one of its dimensions. Like music, it’s made up of pattern + variation – but in this case, it’s the algorithms that act as a group of players, ones with inexhaustible ideas for improvisation. Its sole production raw material was a split-second segment of Super 8 film, reaching back to the last century’s media. This was combined with open source web tools such as GIFs, javascript, and HTML, modded for offline exhibition.

 

Related

 

Still frames

 


 

Dirty Film, 2016

 

 

Generative artwork
Duration – infinite
Exhibition – lightbox or projection
Soundtrack – silent

 

This software-based work was made from a few seconds of Canadian National Film Board film leader, converted into GIFs – a composition was made using HTML and javascript, i.e. chance procedure algorithms, hacked for offline exhibition. The work is analogous to a painting with dynamic qualities, that also transcends the rectangular frame. A parallel, time-based analogy is that of a musical composition with a rigid structure, but instructions for the musicians to improvise within that structure. In this case, it’s the algorithms that are making decisions on-the-fly, becoming the artist’s collaborators in completing the work, live.

 

Related

 

Still frames

 


 

MOUNTAINS, REPETITION, 2014

 

 

Generative artwork
Duration – infinite
Exhibition – lightbox or projection
Soundtrack – silent

 

An extended re-mix of a netart work, this generative artwork was created from three short segments of Super 8 film, and web tools modded for offline exhibition. The footage was shot on Vancouver Island, looking across the Salish Sea at the Olympic Mountains. The intention was to make this series of mountains, the ultimate symbols of immutability, dance rhythmically as though they’re as light as the math they’re made of. The work is continually renewed, and cannot be seen the same way twice.

 

Related

 

Still frames

 


 

Film Generation, 2017

 

 

Generative artwork
Duration – infinite
Exhibition – lightbox or projection
Soundtrack – silent

 

This artwork was made with a short segment of 16mm film leader as a minimalist raw material. Its embedded chance procedures create thousands of new juxtapositions-per-hour, so the work retains a freshness in the viewer’s mind. Its constrained yet dynamic structure connects it to the histories of Structuralist Film, mid-20th century painting, and electronic music that also employs loops and algorithmic chance procedures. With no fixed duration, this artwork challenges conventional ideas that define our temporal structures. It asks if software-based art shouldn’t be part of a new art taxonomy mega-classification – it isn’t plastic, but is it time-based, or beyond time?

 

Related

 

Still frames