Editorial by Frieder Nake
Algorithmic Art
“One might justifiably question the artist’s role in work is that of the digital Sunday painter’s work. It will images that are not merely assembled by the computer not attain the realm of acknowledged art. How can I in its capacity as a tool, but generated directly by it. defend such a position? Where is the human input?” Lambert, Latham and Algorithmic art starts with the development of an Leymarie recently raised this question [1]. algorithm. That’s human work. The generative process The core of their question is as old as computer art ends in some material object, say ink on paper. That’s (about 50 years). I prefer calling such work algorith- the machine’s work. What the machine realizes is one mic art; although algorithmic art does not necessarily instance of a potentially infinite set of pieces. The art- involve a computer, this term is more distinctive. ist, however, has described a concept: the entire class of When an artist uses digital computers today, she is those pieces. Depending on the expressive power of not going to say: Look, a new technique is available, the parameters contained in the algorithmic descrip- it’s complex, but I know how to use it, and look at my tion, the differences in visual appearance of the pieces computer drawings! Such a silly, proud attitude may may be immense. There is no limit to our descriptive have been justified at an early stage of computer art. capacities. I call this stage the McLuhan stage of algorithmic art: There can be no question that for algorithmic art the medium was still the message---which is to say that the human artist is the originator and decision maker. the specific form of the medium was more important Only the marginal effort of running the algorithm and than the content of the message. outputting the result is contributed by the machine. In the early 1960s, when the story of computer By submitting the algorithm to the computer (in form art began, people were asking what contributions to of a program), the artist lets the machine do the man- a work were made by the artist, by the computer and ual part of the work. The operations carried out by by the output device. They felt that if the computer the computer are of semiotic origin. Therefore, some played a considerable role in generating an image, think the operations are mental. then that image could not possibly be a piece of Algorithmic art, we thus see, is computable conceptual art [2]. art. Algorithms are concepts in the special form of Leaving aside the fact that here I am comparing computability. They are concepts that can be carried human work to machinic operation, the artist only out automatically and repeated indefinitely. produces a work. Beyond being produced, a work of Algorithmic art is precisely described art with lots art must be acknowledged as such. Only “society” may of surprises. It is chaotic and rule-based. It is contra- acknowledge a product of work as a work of art. It is dictory in itself. The algorithm is a description from not the artist who decides. The artist finishes his work which the semiotic machine generates something that and presents it to the public. Thus begins the work’s interests us to observe. Algorithmic art is abstract art transformation into a work of art. The result is open. where the work itself has been abstracted away into Marcel Duchamp said in 1957: “The creative act description. The art in algorithmic art rests in the algo- is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator rithm, the human contribution. It appears in the rela- . . . adds his contribution to the creative act” [3]. tion between the algorithm and its output. Duchamp saw a contribution by the spectator at the Frieder Nake time of the work’s creation. How much more is this Leonardo Editorial Advisor so when it comes to judging art. Email:
108 LEONARDO, Vol. 47, No. 2, p. 108, 2014 doi:10.1162/LEON_a_00706 ©2014 ISAST
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