Generative art involves randomness and can be created using algorithmic computer programs or other autonomous processes. The artist sets the framework and incorporates randomness. Examples include Mozart’s musical game, algorithmic art, genetic algorithms, and Soddu’s Italian city plans.
Generative art refers to works of art whose production involves some degree of randomness. Today it is typically created using algorithmic computer programs, although any mechanical process with some level of autonomy can be used to produce generative art. An artist’s creative input into this type of art is to establish the framework in which the randomized process can operate; there are elements of both order and disorder. If a computer program is used, a substantially infinite number of designs can be produced.
Perhaps the earliest example of generative art was a musical game released in Berlin in 1792. The game has been credited to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an influential composer of the classical era of music. Dice were rolled in the game to randomly select already composed fragments of music, which were then pieced together to form a finished piece. Even amateurs were said to be able to form an infinite number of compositions. In this example, the dice act as a random mechanism and the different musical fragments act as “rules”.
Algorithmic art is a subset of generative art that uses computer algorithms, or sets of well-defined instructions, to create designs. For this type of process to be generative, however, some degree of autonomy must be present. A random number generator is a way to make algorithms behave in a non-deterministic way. An artist will typically set the boundaries of a design space using algorithmic functions and then incorporate the element of randomness within that structure. Algorithmic methods are popular today for creating a wide variety of visual artworks.
Some algorithms can build on the designs from the previous steps, simulating an evolutionary optimization. Such algorithms that are inspired by evolutionary biology are called genetic algorithms. The rules of design success, which refer to reproductive success in the biological analogy, can be determined by an artist as creative input to the model. A random factor in the model corresponds to the effects of the mutation in a living organism.
Another example of generative art is the set of Italian medieval city plans created by an architect named Celestino Soddu in 1987. Soddu created a series of conditions under which a random computer process could be set in motion to create a pattern of a city. The conditions were such that the end result would always be a town identifiable in the Italian medieval style. While there were enough model constraints to keep them in this style, an essentially infinite number of models could be created.
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