Talk:Generative art/Archive 1

Mandelbrot set irrelevant
The Mandelbrot set is mathematically exciting and visually appealing, but perceived as more like kitsch if pushed into the contemporary art context. I think it should be removed from this article since aesthetic is not the same thing as art. If we talk about generative art+design+illustration in a more general title, only then products of the fractal geometry can be included, but it does not fit into any contemporary discussions within the art world today, other than being ridiculed as "eye-candy". --Bergamut (talk) 11:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Note
Page needed for Harold Cohen, pioneer in generative art. Prior version had bad link to a different Cohen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.35.182 (talk) 07:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

other
i read comments like stub, cleanup needed, external link ranch etc. the topic itself is subject to change and the discussion and definition of the topic is undeclared by far. there is no standard literature or similar available about this topic and i hope that the structures of wikipedia will fill the gap even if this does not like as professional as the rest of the encyclopedia. this is about art and not that clear like other terms. additionally, a bit more sort within the links section can help a visitor to get into the materia. - my 2 cents

I didn't understand the difference between generative music and generative art. Could you perhaps clearify the difference a little bit better?

User rgc added link to list of australian generative video artists. would be good to see a separate page for generative video art.

I added protoquadro project to the example and made a protoquadro page to explain what it is. Freddbomba (talk) 11:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Complete rewrite suggested and volunteered
I appreciate the work others have put in here, but frankly I think this topic needs a complete rewrite. My paper "What is Generative Art?" from the International Conference on Generative Art is the most widely cited theory and definition of generative art and has been quoted in a number of languages including English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Chinese. It has at times been cited here and in the current version bits of pieces of it are scattered throughout without attribution. But frankly it's been distorted in the process.

By no means would I pretend to "stake out" this article as my own. That's not how Wikipedia works. But I also know many of the major actors both in practice and theory and I would like to call them into play as well. It would be important to include perspectives other than my own. And it's important that this article truly reflect the best wisdom of the experts in the field.

Much if not most of what is here would be retained. But it would be tuned, reorganized, and where needed corrected for accuracy and coherence.

I would be willing to put in the time to help make this entry achieve the highest rating available from those above. But a fresh start, preserving what is good from the old, really is needed. My worry is that I'd make big changes only to have them yanked back down or result in some kind of editing war.

So how best to go about this? Those interested are welcome to view my theory work here: http://philipgalanter.com/research/ as well as a slowly developing generative art wiki project here: http://philipgalanter.com/generative_art/wiki/

Philip Galanter Assistant Professor Department of Visualization Texas A&M University Philipgalanter (talk) 21:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Philip, As you say a lot of it seems fine, and a major edit might well prove contentious, although I can't think of a better person to do it than you. I'd suggest an incremental approach, editing it in place on wikipedia, and any material that is removed is done edit by edit, with reference to wikipedia's rules, in particular relating to notability and original research. That seems fairest to me. Yaxu (talk) 21:06, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I've pruned a little, and added some tags calling for improvements. The list of 'related articles' is telling. We should at least propose merging the "algorithmic art" article with this one, and perhaps also the generative music one. Yaxu (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Howdy, I was gone for a while but am now looking to work on this actively. I'll follow your lead and do this incrementally, although that may lead to some awkward in between steps. Regarding merging algorithmic art I would tend to disagree as it is a subset of generative art. If you go in that direction the temptation will be to add lots of other subsets...physical computing, chance music, bio-art, etc. Better I think to make it clear that generative art is the "big tent" and then have pointers to all the subsets.

Philipgalanter (talk) 21:53, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Generative or Algorithmic Art?
I think there is a major confusion in this article, it seems to refer to algorithmic art (art generated by algorithms) rather than generative art (art generated by sets of rules). Generative art is not necessarily produced by computers nor algorithms, e.g. the work of William Latham started with generative processes in paper to later move into computers in a non algorithmic fashion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.250.5.249 (talk) 01:20, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Specific to this issue there are actually 3 distinct terms. Generative art is art created at least in part by using a system that can, at least in principle, be thought of as being autonomous. But those systems can include things like chemical processes, smart materials, or biological life. Algorithmic art is a subset of generative art that focuses on the use of software programmable computers. Rules-based-art may or may not be generative art. Some rules-based-art, for example, uses constraint rules that, by themselves, do not have sufficient autonomy to be generative. For example "Make a painting which only uses red and black paint" is rules-based, but not generative. That example may seem trivial but in fact there is a surprisingly large body of rules-based-art that is not generative.

please see the link below to an article I wrote on this topic.

Philipgalanter (talk) 21:53, 21 August 2011 (UTC)