ALGORITHMIC
ART
: Composing
A Visual Arts Score
By
Roman Verostko (c)2000
A
New Frontier.
For
over 40 years I have painted pure visual forms ranging from controlled
constructions with highly studied color behavior to spontaneous brush
strokes and automatic drawing. Such art has been
labeled variously as "concrete",
"abstract", "non-objective", and "non-representational"
(Note 1). In its purest form
such art does not re-present other reality. Rather
"it is" the reality.
One contemplates a pure form similar to the way one might
contemplate a fine vase or a seashell.
Radically new procedures for creating such art emerged in the
last quarter of the Twentieth Century.
With the advent of computers I began composing original
detailed instructions for generating forms that are accessible only
through extensive computing. (Note 2) These
procedures opened a vast array of pure form, an uncharted frontier of
unseen worlds waiting to be discovered and concretized (Note
3). My
on-going work concentrates on developing my program of procedures, the
score, for visualizing these forms. By joining these procedures with
fine arts practice I create aesthetic objects to be contemplated much
as we contemplate the wondrous forms of nature.
Algorithmic
form generators. When I was a child a "computer" was a human
person hired to do computation. (Note 4)
These human computers had to follow
rigorous step-by-step procedures for their computations. Such
procedures are algorithms. Following the war, mechanical calculators
and computing machines began replacing the work of human
"computers". These machines followed the same algorithms as
those used by the humans. Soon algorithms were driving robots such as
welding and milling machines in factories. Today we have algorithms
driving our bread making machines and monitoring our bank accounts.
From
prehistoric times human craft has been algorithmic. The procedures for
weaving baskets and fashioning hunting tools gradually evolved as they
passed from one generation to the next.
A better algorithm meant a better product! Algorithms in the
arts would include the composer's score, the architect's plan and the
choreographer's dance notation. Given
sufficient detail and a sufficiently robust language, any procedure
for executing a task can be translated into a computer compatible
instruction (algorithm). A computer, connected to appropriate
machinery, can execute instructions for playing music, drawing a form,
or displaying a figure moving in space.
The
greater part of my creative work in the past 15 years has been
developing art form generators that I integrate into my exploration of
"unseen form". These are original detailed procedures, for
initiating and improvising form ideas. Such form generators may be
likened to biological genotypes since they contain the code for
generating forms. The procedure for executing the code, somewhat
analogous to biological epigenesis, grows the form (Note
5). The
creation and control of these instructions provides an awesome means
for an artist to employ form-growing concepts as an integral part of
the creative process. Such routines provide access to countless visual
worlds that constitute a new frontier of visual forms for the artist.
The
Work.
Works
are executed with a multi-pen plotter coupled to a PC driven by the
software. The plotter, choosing from an array of pens loaded with
pigmented inks, draws each individual line.
Most works require thousands of lines with software controlled
pen changes (Note 6).
An optional brush routine allows the
occasional substitution of a brush for a pen.
Brush strokes are plotted with brushes adapted to the machine's
drawing arm. One series of illuminated digital scripts is reminiscent
of medieval manuscripts. Many of these works are enhanced with a touch
of gold or silver leaf applied by hand. However, the design elements
illuminated with gold are always code generated and machine plotted.
Content
and Meaning.
Over
the years the software has evolved by stages yielding a series of
works for each stage - Pathway, Gaia, Glyph, Scarab, Apocalypse and
Ezekiel. Each of these series has distinctive formal qualities
associated with its form generators. None of the works are made with
intentional representations in mind. Rather, each work presents one
more adventure into an uncharted world of forms. This art does not
re-present some sort of subject or object.
Just as a botanist might label a newly discovered flower so
also I label this or that newly made visual form or series of forms.
Titles are therefore arbitrary and often derived from evocative
qualities associated with the work.
The
art works are visual manifestations of the dynamic procedures by which
they grew. They may be viewed as visual celebrations of the
information processing procedures embedded in today's culture. The
finished works invite us to savor the mystery of their coded
procedures whose stark logic yields a surprising grace and beauty.
These procedures provide a window on those unseen processes from which
they are grown. By doing so they serve as icons illuminating the
mysterious nature of our evolving selves.