Marius Watz, an interview on Generative Art
Some interesting excerpt from interview to Marius Watz, artist and curator of the Generator.x conference:
Generative art is often understood exclusively as software generated abstractions. I personally understand the term as a much broader range of strategies involving both digital and non-digital systems and processes bridging specific art traditions and media.
Generative art describes a strategy for artistic practice, not a style or genre of work.
The artist describes a rule-based system external to him/herself that either produces works of art or is itself a work of art.
For the term generative art to have any meaning when applied to a given work, the aspect of generativity must be dominant in the work. Many computer-based art projects have generative elements, but are not concerned with generative systems as an end result.
Younger artists have so far been a little naive when it comes to considering generative work in an art historical context, but I think there is no doubt that the intention behind their work is frequently quite different from the painters who took up the keyboard in the 1960s and started to code.
Some [artists] want to explore scientific issues in an artistic context, some are looking to create solutions not possible in traditional animation or interaction design, others are interested purely in form and structure.
Generative art defines itself through a methodology, not a specific type of output.
However, in reality the group of artists who currently define themselves as generative artists do function as a group, creating works that can be placed in similar schools of thought and understood as coming out of similar artistic interests.
It’s extremely rare that anyone (no matter how brilliant) has an idea that is not also being had by similar people with similar backgrounds and skill sets.
Read the full interview at: September 20th 2005: Generative Art Now. An Interview with Marius Watz
Generator.x: The conference takes place at Atelier Nord in Oslo, September 23-24, 2005. The exhibition opens September 23 at the National Museum in Oslo and will tour until 2008.