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ZotWeb	article-journal
Src Url	Boden, Edmonds (2009)

There are various forms of what’s sometimes called generative art, or computer art. This paper distinguishes the major categories and asks whether the appropriate aesthetic criteria—and the locus of creativity—are the same in each case.

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Citer: (Boden & Edmonds, 2009)

FTag: Boden-Edmonds-2009

APA7: Boden, M. A., & Edmonds, E. A. (2009). What is generative art? Digital Creativity, 20(1–2), 21–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/14626260902867915

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Keywords: computer art, generative art, interactive art, computational creativity

Rules are at the heart of this type of art. But what computer scientists call rule-based programming (e.g. Kowalski and Levy 1996) is not necessarily implied. The computer-art community regards it as important that the artwork is generated from a set of specified rules, or constraints, rather than from a step-by-step algorithm. But the detailed implementation method (i.e. the specific computer system that’s being used) is not normally seen to be significant.

In other words, rule-driven systems appear to have a greater degree of autonomy, relative to the conscious decisions of the human artist.

autonomy is a concept that’s closely connected with art-making
ArtConcept

[...] computer artists are more comfortable in speaking of ‘generative art’ where the system is rule-driven, not algorithmic - and why they usually avoid step-by-step programming.

What is a **rule-driven** system?
GenerativeArt | ref2011081831 | RuleDriveVSStepByStepProgramming | RuleDriven

Yet another problematic area concerns aesthetic evaluation. Are entirely novel aesthetic considerations relevant for CG-art in general, or for some subclass of it? And are some aesthetic criteria, normally regarded as essential, utterly out of place in CG-art: authenticity, for instance?
AIProblematic | ref2011081831

We’ll see that judgements concerning creativity, authorial responsibility, agency, autonomy, authenticity and (sometimes) ontology are even more problematic outside the precious bubble than inside it.
AIProblematic | ArtProblematic | ref2011081831

Generative art enables the artist to concentrate on the underlying rules themselves: the structures that define the artwork, as against the surface. (This is a position clearly associ- ated with distaste for decoration and ornament.)
GAConcept | ref2011081831 | GenerativeArt

Our taxonomy distinguishes eleven types of art. We call them Ele-art, C-art, D-art, CA-art, G-art, CG-art, Evo-art, R-art, I-art, CI-art and VR-art.
GATaxonomy | ref2011081831

G-art works are generated, at least in part, by some process that is not under the artist’s direct control.

See: Ezratty-2018   SymbolicComputation

See: Ezratty-2018   \ [\ [ConnectionnistComputation] ]
AIType | ConnectionnistComputation | SymbolicComputation

Most of them rely heavily on digital com- puting and in particular on methods drawn from AI / A-Life. Specifically, they have employed both symbolic and connectionist computation, and—more recently—cellular automata, L- systems and evolutionary programming too. This is an ascending spiral, not a linear ascent, because two of those ‘recent’ methods were foreseen (by John von Neumann) in 1950s cybernetics, and all three had been mathemat- ically defined by the 1960s—but none could be fruitfully explored, by artists or scientists, until powerful computers became av ai lable much later (Boden 2006, p. 15.v-vi).

Utilisation de cet article pour taxonomiser la pratique des artistes.

CE QUE JE LIS ET AMASSE, ANNOTE, DOIT RÉSOUDRE CE QUI EST CI-BAS:

Cet article est une étude de cas emblématique des pratiques artistiques de Memo Akten en collaboration avec intelligence artificielle.  Après avoir exposé une taxonomie de l’art génératif, cet article fera une étude de cas des œuvres de Akten en relation à la technologie des réseaux neuronaux convolutifs (RNC).  On examinera dans ce contexte ce que produisent les RNCs dans sa production artistique.

[OUVRIR DOC]
ArticleAkten | ref2011081831 | Taxonomiser | ref2011141130

|   No    |  Acronym     | Definition      |   Artists    | |  ---  |  ---  |  ---  |  ---  | 

|   1.    |  Ele-art       |  involves electrical engineering and / or electronic technology.     |       | |   2.    |  C-art      |  C-art uses computers as part of the art- making process.     |       | |   3.    |  D-art     | D-art  uses digital electronic technology of some sort.     |       | |   4.    |  CA-art     |  CA-art uses the computer as an aid (in principle, non-essential) in the art-making process.      |       | |  5.     |  G-art     |  works are generated, at least in part, by some process that is not under the artist’s direct control.      |       | |  6.     |  CG-art    |   CG-art  is produced by leaving a computer program to run by itself, with minimal or zero interference from a human being. NB: We chose to reject the stricter definition of CG-art (art produced by a program left to run by itself, with zero interference from the human artist).     |       | |   7.    |  Evo-art    |  Evo-art  is evolved by processes of random variation and selective reproduction that affect the art-generating program itself.      |       | |   8.    |  R-art    | R-art  is the construction of robots for artistic purposes, where robots are physical machines capable of autonomous move- ment and / or communication.      |       | |  9.     |  I-art    |  In I-art, the form / content of the artwork is significantly affected by the behaviour of the audience.      |       | |   10.    |  CI-art     |  In CI-art, the form / content of some CG-artwork is significantly affected by the behaviour of the audience.     | |   11.    |   VR-art    |  In VR-art, the observer is immersed in a computer-generated virtual world, experiencing it and responding to it as if it were real.     |       |
GATaxonomy | Taxonomy | ref2011141130

C-art [...] is a form of G-art.

Ele-Art  (df.) Forme d'art dont la production implique des technologie numérique et d'ingénérie electrique.

Ele-art. ... any artwork whose production involves electrical engineering and / or electronic technology.
Ele-Art

Haydn and Mozart the exact order of the pre- composed phrases was decided by throwing a die.

Computer programs, in contrast, are so specifiable.

CG-art programs are or are not ‘under the artist’s direct control’ and the extent to which, and the points at which, they are subject to “interference from a human being”.

if in fact it is no less directive, no less determinate,

CI-art it covers voluntary actions (such as waving, walking and touching the computer screen), largely automatic yet control lable actions (such as the direction of eye-gaze) and involuntary bodily movements (such as breathing)

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