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Contemporary Creative Algorithms
The cultural obsession with the art object is slowly disappearing and being replaced by what might be called ‘systems consciousness.’ Actually, this shifts from the direct shaping of matter to a concern for organizing quantities of energy and information. Beyond modern sculpture, Jack Burnham 1968.
Burnham one of the early proponents of ‘system aesthetics’ heralded in the utopian moment where a general system theory offered the possibility to radically reorganize society. 50 years since this time, how might some of these ideas still have relevance? Much like systems theory before it, algorithms appear currently to be used as a descriptive theory of life. To Shakespeare, all the world was a stage. To natural philosophers of Newton’s era, it was a mechanical clock. Physicists of the 19th century viewed reality more like a steam engine. Today a fair number of scientists regard nature as a computer.
Below I shall highlight several sources of interest in algorithms. An overarching idea guiding my research is that algorithms produce unexpected results. These unexpected results currently can be seen most visibly and urgently to us in the transference of information between humans and machines. But these unexpected results are also what artists attempt to create when operating creatively. My thesis will explore the premise that what occurs in these processes constitutes…
