Generative Art - History of The Term

History of The Term

The use of the word "generative" in the discussion of art is scattered throughout the literature. Usage of the term has developed over time.

The use of Artificial DNA defines a generative approach to Art focused on the construction of a system able to generate unpredictable events, all with a recognizable common character.

The use of Autonomous Systems, required by some contemporary definitions, focuses a generative approach where the controls are strongly reduced. This approach is also named "emergent". It is not clear when the term generative was first used, although Boden and Edmonds have noted the use of the term "generative art" in the broad context of automated computer graphics in the 1960s, beginning with artwork exhibited by Georg Nees and Nake in 1965:

The terms "generative art" and "computer art" have been used in tandem, and more or less interchangeably, since the very earliest days.

The first such exhibition showed the work of Nees in February 1965, which some claim was titled "Generative Computergrafik". While Nees does not himself remember, this was the title of his doctoral thesis published a few years later. "Generative art" and related terms was in common use by several other early computer artists around this time, including Manfred Mohr. Also if the term "Generative Art" with the meaning of dynamic artwork-systems able to generate several artwork-events was clearly used the first time for the "Generative Art" conference in Milan in 1998.

The term has also been used to describe geometric abstract art where simple elements are repeated, transformed, or varied to generate more complex forms. Thus defined generative art was practiced by the Argentinian artists Eduardo McEntyre and Miguel Ángel Vidal in the late 1960s. In 1972 the Romanian-born Paul Neagu created the Generative Art Group in Britain. It was populated exclusively by Neagu using aliases such as "Hunsy Belmood" and "Edward Larsocchi." In 1972 Neagu gave a lecture titled 'Generative Art Forms' at the Queen's University, Belfast Festival.

In 1970 the School of the Art Institute of Chicago created a department called "Generative Systems." As described by Sonia Landy Sheridan the focus was on art practices using the then new technologies for the capture, inter-machine transfer, printing and transmission of images, as well as the exploration of the aspect of time in the transformation of image information.

In 1988 Clauser identified the aspect of systemic autonomy as a critical element in generative art:

It should be evident from the above description of the evolution of generative art that process (or structuring) and change (or transformation) are among its most definitive features, and that these features and the very term 'generative' imply dynamic development and motion. ... (the result) is not a creation by the artist but rather the product of the generative process - a self-precipitating structure.

In 1989 Celestino Soddu defined the Generative Design approach to Architecture and Town Design in his book "Citta' Aleatorie".

In 1989 Franke referred to "generative mathematics" as "the study of mathematical operations suitable for generating artistic images."

From the mid-1990s Brian Eno popularized the terms generative music and generative systems, making a connection with earlier experimental music by Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

From the end of the 20th century, communities of generative artists, designers, musicians and theoreticians began to meet, forming cross-disciplinary perspectives. The first meeting about generative Art was in 1998, at the inaugural International Generative Art conference at Politecnico di Milano University, Italy. In Australia, the Iterate conference on generative systems in the electronic arts followed in 1999. On-line discussion has centred around the eu-gene mailing list, which began late 1999, and has hosted much of the debate which has defined the field. These activities have more recently been joined by the Generator.x conference in Berlin starting in 2005. In 2012 the new journal GASATHJ, Generative Art Science and Technology hard Journal was founded by Celestino Soddu and Enrica Colabella jointing several generative artists and scientists in the Editorial Board.

Some have argued that as a result of this engagement across disciplinary boundaries, the community has converged on a shared meaning of the term. As Boden and Edmonds put it in 2011:

Today, the term "Generative Art" is still current within the relevant artistic community. Since 1998 a series of conferences have been held in Milan with that title (Generativeart.com), and Brian Eno has been influential in promoting and using generative art methods (Eno, 1996). Both in music and in visual art, the use of the term has now converged on work that has been produced by the activation of a set of rules and where the artist lets a computer system take over at least some of the decision-making (although, of course, the artist determines the rules).

In the call of the Generative Art conferences in Milan (annually starting from 1998), the definition of Generative Art by Celestino Soddu:

Generative Art is the idea realized as genetic code of artificial events, as construction of dynamic complex systems able to generate endless variations. Each Generative Project is a concept-software that works producing unique and non-repeatable events, like music or 3D Objects, as possible and manifold expressions of the generating idea strongly recognizable as a vision belonging to an artist / designer / musician / architect /mathematician.

Discussion on the eu-gene mailing list was framed by the following definition by Adrian Ward from 1999:

Generative art is a term given to work which stems from concentrating on the processes involved in producing an artwork, usually (although not strictly) automated by the use of a machine or computer, or by using mathematic or pragmatic instructions to define the rules by which such artworks are executed.

A similar definition is provided by Philip Galanter:

Generative art refers to any art practice where the artist creates a process, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is then set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art.