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The tools of Generative Art from Flash to Neural Networks.

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The tools of Generative Art from Flash to Neural Networks.

Like it or not, we are all computer nerds now. All aspects of our lives are driven by computation and algorithms: how we learn, work, play, even date. Given this situation, one could argue that generative art—work created at least in part with autonomous, automated systems—is the art that best reflects our time.

Generative art was initially rejected by the cultural establishment as the domain of computer scientists and mathematicians. Grace Hertlein says a colleague called her a “whore” and a “traitor” for her use of the computer as an art-making tool in the late 1960s.¹ In a 1970 New York Times review, critic John Canada compared a display of computer art he saw at a convention to “popular sideshows” and “circuses.”² But recent years have seen a spike in institutional interest in generative art, as evidenced by a number of museum shows.³ Perhaps this embrace is linked to the increased accessibility of technology, as computers and network connections have become commonplace in homes in the last two decades.