Technology has influenced all spheres of life, from communication to health to art. What many people don’t realize is the extent to which art has not just been changed, but supplemented by technology. Math and logic form the basis of all aspects of nature, especially art. Our minds are built in such a way that the innate logical and mathematical calculations we perform are so natural, that when writing a song, painting a picture, or performing any other artistic process, we do them unconsciously.
Computer code, though it may seem like a mundane and uninventive medium in fact has a vast wealth of possible creative pursuits. Just as a saw may not appear be a creative tool to anyone but the artistically minded carpenter, code is a tool, all one needs to do is learn how to use it.
The process of art making can be broadly divided into two actions, the concept that forms in the mind and the hand or other limb that implements the mind’s concept. What I have attempted to achieve with the Artificial Artist is the segregation of the two. When I started this project, I had a rough idea of what I wanted to achieve, but no idea as to how to implement it. By transferring the actual drawing process to the computer, the hand that draws gets separated from the mind. Ultimately, I designed the program to be self sufficient; rather than being a puppet to my strings, it is self driven and doesn’t require mine or any other entity’s input (both literally and figuratively). The idea may have originated in my mind, but it is visualized by the computer.
For those who would like to know, the program was originally written in Java. It is designed to refresh every thirty seconds. Since the program draws its root from variables that change with every refresh, the pattern drawn will be different each time. The genre of art that this falls into is relatively new, only having arisen in the last 60 years or so. It is called generative media.
