The Machine as Art/ The Machine as Artist • Frederic Fol Leymarie, Juliette Bessette Smith and G.W. The Machine as Art/ The Machine as Artist Edited by Frederic Fol Leymarie, Juliette Bessette and G.W. Smith Printed Edition of the Special Issues Published in Arts www.mdpi.com/journal/arts The Machine as Art/ The Machine as Artist The Machine as Art/ The Machine as Artist Editors Frederic Fol Leymarie Juliette Bessette G.W. Smith MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Manchester • Tokyo • Cluj • Tianjin Editors Frederic Fol Leymarie Juliette Bessette G.W. Smith University of London Sorbonne University Space Machines Corporation UK France USA Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issues published online in the open access journal Arts (ISSN 2076-0752) (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special issues/Machine Art and https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special issues/Machine Artist). For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year, Article Number, Page Range. ISBN 978-3-03936-064-2 (Hbk) ISBN 978-3-03936-065-9 (PDF) Cover image courtesy of Liat Grayver (www.liatgrayver.com). A detail of her robotically-assisted painting “LG02”. c 2020 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Contents About the Editors .............................................. vii Memo Akten Foreword ................................................... ix Juliette Bessette, Frederic Fol Leymarie and Glenn W. Smith Trends and Anti-Trends in Techno-Art Scholarship: The Legacy of the Arts “Machine” Special Issues Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 120, doi:10.3390/arts8030120 ...................... 1 Juliette Bessette The Machine as Art (in the 20th Century): An Introduction Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 4, doi:10.3390/arts7010004 ........................ 7 Liliane Lijn Accepting the Machine: A Response by Liliane Lijn to Three Questions from Arts Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 21, doi:10.3390/arts7020021 ....................... 15 Joseph Nechvatal Before and Beyond the Bachelor Machine Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 67, doi:10.3390/arts7040067 ....................... 25 Ana¨ısRolez The Mechanical Art of Laughter Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 2, doi:10.3390/arts8010002 ........................ 41 Nicolas Ballet Survival Research Laboratories: A Dystopian Industrial Performance Art Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 17, doi:10.3390/arts8010017 ....................... 47 Ernest Edmonds Communication Machines as Art Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 22, doi:10.3390/arts8010022 ....................... 61 Glenn W. Smith and Frederic Fol Leymarie The Machine as Artist: An Introduction Reprinted from: Arts 2017, 6, 5, doi:10.3390/arts6020005 ........................ 73 Blaise Ag ¨ueray Arcas Art in the Age of Machine Intelligence Reprinted from: Arts 2017, 6, 18, doi:10.3390/arts6040018 ....................... 81 Ernest Edmonds Algorithmic Art Machines Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 3, doi:10.3390/arts7010003 ........................ 91 Amy LaViers, Catie Cuan, Catherine Maguire, Karen Bradley, Kim Brooks Mata, Alexandra Nilles, Ilya Vidrin, Novoneel Chakraborty, Madison Heimerdinger, Umer Huzaifa, Reika McNish, Ishaan Pakrasi, and Alexander Zurawski Choreographic and Somatic Approaches for the Development of Expressive Robotic Systems Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 11, doi:10.3390/arts7020011 ....................... 99 v Aaron Hertzmann Can Computers Create Art? Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 18, doi:10.3390/arts7020018 .......................121 Andy Lomas On Hybrid Creativity Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 25, doi:10.3390/arts7030025 .......................147 Leonel Moura Robot Art: An Interview with Leonel Moura Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 28, doi:10.3390/arts7030028 .......................157 J¨org Marvin G ¨ulzow, Liat Grayver and Oliver Deussen Self-Improving Robotic Brushstroke Replication Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 84, doi:10.3390/arts7040084 .......................163 Richard Carter Waves to Waveforms: Performing the Thresholds of Sensors and Sense-Making in the Anthropocene Reprinted from: Arts 2018, 7, 70, doi:10.3390/arts7040070 .......................191 Andreas Broeckmann The Machine as Artist as Myth Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 25, doi:10.3390/arts8010025 .......................207 Marian Mazzone and Ahmed Elgammal Art, Creativity, and the Potential of Artificial Intelligence Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 26, doi:10.3390/arts8010026 .......................217 Seymour Simmons Drawing in the Digital Age: Observations and Implications for Education Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 33, doi:10.3390/arts8010033 .......................227 Sofian Audry and Jon Ippolito Can Artificial Intelligence Make Art without Artists? Ask the Viewer Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 35, doi:10.3390/arts8010035 .......................245 Arthur Still and Mark d’Inverno Can Machines Be Artists? A Deweyan Response in Theory and Practice Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 36, doi:10.3390/arts8010036 .......................253 Naoko Tosa, Yunian Pang, Qin Yang and Ryohei Nakatsu Pursuit and Expression of Japanese Beauty Using Technology Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 38, doi:10.3390/arts8010038 .......................267 Amy LaViers Ideal Mechanization: Exploring the Machine Metaphor through Theory and Performance Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 67, doi:10.3390/arts8020067 .......................281 Glenn W. Smith An Interview with Frieder Nake Reprinted from: Arts 2019, 8, 69, doi:10.3390/arts8020069 .......................297 vi About the Editors Frederic Fol Leymarie is a professor with the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London, where his focus has been on creative applications of computing. In this role, he has been instrumental in establishing Masters’ degree programs in Arts Computing and Computer Games (in Programming as well as Art and Design); he has established collaborations with artists including Brower Hatcher, William Latham, Patrick Tresset, Rui F. Antunes, Carol MacGillivray, Daniel Berio, Memo Akten, and Terrance Broad; and he has also launched two related entrepreneurial ventures: London Geometry Ltd. (together with Prof. William Latham) and DynAIkon Ltd. (together with Prof. Stefan Rueger). Frederic received his Ph.D. from Brown University, Engineering Division, with a focus on 3D shape understanding. Juliette Bessette is a researcher in art history (Sorbonne University, Centre Andre´ Chastel). Her research focuses on the impact of technical and scientific changes on artistic creation and history of ideas in the post-World War II era in Europe and the USA. She is also part of the project “Mass Media/Transmedia/Postmedia: research at the interface between arts and technologies” (DFK – Paris). She is a lecturer at Sorbonne University and at the Ecole du Louvre. G.W. Smith is an English Literature major turned software engineer turned kinetic sculptor; the creator of the BLAST (blocked asynchronous transmission) data communications protocol; the founder of Space Machines Corporation, a kinetic sculpture and motion display consultancy; a contributor, as a techno-art theorist, to journals such as Arts and Leonardo; and the holder of two patents in the field of electro-mechanical display systems. vii Foreword In 1843, the renowned mathematician Lady Ada Lovelace, often known as the world’s first computer programmer, published her famous “Notes” (Lovelace 1843), and which, remarkably, included some insightful visions on computational art. The “Analytical Engine” was a mechanical computer designed by the inventor Charles Babbage in 1837. It was only partially built in that time, but this did not stop Lovelace from designing programs for it and theorizing on its potential. She had the insight to see that it could perform beyond just acting on numbers to solve equations, but could also conduct symbolic manipulation to perform true general purpose computing. She also had the vision to foresee that the Analytical Engine could be used to compose generative music: Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent or even that it could create generative imagery, “We may say most aptly, that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns, just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.” However, it is another of her rather controversial statements that I would like to recall: The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with. Almost two centuries later, we are still grappling with this statement and still trying to understand our relationship