Generative Art vs Net.art
ジェネラティブアート / ネット・アート
Both sit in Digital Art, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Generative Art
Art that delegates production to rule and randomness, the artist designing the system. From Nees's and Molnár's plotter drawings, coded repetition and chance became the source of design's generative methods.
Net.art
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Treats the browser, the link, the transmission error and the network itself as both the material and the site of the work.
| Generative Art | Net.art | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1965– | 1990s– |
| Family | Digital Art | Digital Art |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Rule and randomness together / The plotter's line / Variation through repetition / The work as system | Link structures / Browser UI / Errors / Participation and transmission |
| Best used for | Letting a machine make identifiers or one-off tickets that must all differ · Exhibitions or works where designing the rule is what is on show | Publishing work at a URL when it can only exist inside a browser · Making the mechanics of transmission and surveillance the subject itself |
| Type | Letters handled as coordinates and repetitions with the face itself fixed | Use default browser fonts and leave underlined links undecorated |
| Composition | Seed and random range set, outputs laid side by side to inspect the spread | Make navigation the composition, assuming back buttons and several windows |
| Material | Lines assumed at a plotter's constant weight, tone made by overlap density | HTML, GIF, error screens and slow loading treated as material |
| Caution | A random range set too wide widens the gap between good and bad results and leaves a pile of output instead of a work. | Reproducing the early web look as a flat image leaves nothing that links, transmits or invites participation, and the network that was the site of the work disappears. |