Generative Art

ジェネラティブアート / 1965- / Technique / Digital Art

A way of working in which the maker writes only the rule and the randomness, leaving the drawing to the machine. As in Nees's plotter work, the result is shown as several variants born of one rule.

Generative Art — AI-generated interpretation 1
AI-generated interpretation, not a reference work
Generative Art — Vera Molnár, Interruptions à recouvrements, 1969 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0
Vera Molnár, Interruptions à recouvrements, 1969 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 · CC0
Generative Art — Manfred Mohr, P-306-O, 1980 to 1982 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Manfred Mohr, New York
Manfred Mohr, P-306-O, 1980 to 1982 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Manfred Mohr, New York

At a glance

Visual cues

  • One simple element repeated to fill the field
  • Variants of a single rule shown side by side
  • Repetition drifting in angle and position
  • A density and precision no hand could reach

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

Use this style

Take the compact brief into a project or hand the structured version to an AI tool.

Detailed guidance and sourcesProduction rules, reference works, comparisons, research and citation formats

Dictionary entry

Type
Letters handled as coordinates and repetitions with the face itself fixed
Composition
Seed and random range set, outputs laid side by side to inspect the spread
Material
Lines assumed at a plotter's constant weight, tone made by overlap density
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.
Further study
Georg Nees / Vera Molnár / Processing and creative coding

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Cite this entry

The dictionary is meant to be linked to. Take whichever form fits where you are writing.

Link
https://indexstyle.org/styles/generative-art
Markdown
[Generative Art — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/generative-art)
HTML
<a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/generative-art">Generative Art — IndexStyle</a>

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