Contents

Series Foreword

I

  1    Introduction

II

  2    A Taxonomy of Computer Art

  3    Explaining the Ineffable

  4    Art Appreciation and Creative Skills

  5    Can Evolutionary Art Provide Radical Novelty?

  6    Collingwood, Emotion, and Computer Art

  7    The Gothic and Computer Art

III

  8    Computer Art and the Art World

  9    Formal Ways of Making Art: Code as an Answer to a Dream

10    Programming as Art

11    Diversities of Interaction

12    Correspondences: Uniting Image and Sound

13    Diversities of Engagement

IV

14    Conversations with Computer Artists

Aaron Marcus

Harold Cohen

Manfred Mohr

Paul Brown

Roman Verostko

Julie Freeman

Alex May

Kate Sicchio

Andrew Brown

Mark Fell

Alex McLean

Index

Color Plates

List of Figures

Figure 3.1

An example of AARON’s jungle period, late 1980s; the drawing was done by the program, but the coloring was done by hand. Untitled. 1988, oil on canvas (painted by Harold Cohen), 54″ × 77″, Robert Hendel collection. (Reproduced with permission of the Harold Cohen Trust.)

Figure 3.2

An example of AARON’s early 1990s period; the drawing was done by the program, but the coloring was done by hand. San Francisco People. 1991, oil on canvas (painted by Harold Cohen), 60″ × 84″, collection of the artist. (Reproduced with permission of the Harold Cohen Trust.)

Figure 3.3

An example of AARON’s acrobats-and-balls period, early 1980s. (Reproduced by permission of the Harold Cohen Trust and reprinted from Boden 2004, frontispiece.)

Figure 3.4

Analogy problem tackled by Evans’s program (Evans 1968).

Figure 3.5

The letter a written in different fonts (Hofstadter 1995, 413). (Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.)

Figure 3.6

Different fonts based on the Letter Spirit matrix (Hofstadter 1995, 418). (Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.)

Figure 9.1

Max Bill. Ardiv III. 1972, screen print. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of Ernest Edmonds.)

Figure 9.2

Jeffrey Steele. SYNTAGMA SG III 104. 1992, oil on linen, 61 × 61 cm. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 9.3

Ernest Edmonds. Nineteen. 1968–1969, multimedia, 183 × 145 × 17 cm. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist. Image courtesy of Jules Lister.)

Figure 9.4

Dominic Boreham. STOS 55. 1979, plotter drawing, ink on paper, 50 × 50 cm. (Reproduced by permission of Ernest Edmonds and the artist.)

Figure 11.1

Edward Ihnatowitz. Senster. (Photograph Edward Ihnatowitz.)

Figure 11.2

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. Life Spacies. 1997, screenshot, collection of NTT-ICC, Tokyo, Japan. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artists.)

Figure 11.3

Sidney Fels and Kenji Mase. Iamascope. 2000, in the Millennium Dome Play Zone, London. See color insert. (Photograph courtesy of Linda Candy.)

Figure 11.4

Ernest Edmonds. Shaping Space. 2012, interactive installation. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist. Photograph Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK.)

Figure 13.1

Brigid Costello. Just a Bit of Spin. 2007, two views of someone interacting with the work. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 13.2

Zafer Bilda’s creative engagement model. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of Zafer Bilda.)

Figure 14.1

Aaron Marcus. Evolving Gravity. 1972–1974. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 14.2

Harold Cohen. Coming Home #2. 2007, permanent pigment ink on panel, 57.5 × 169.5 cm. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 14.3

Manfred Mohr. P155c. 1974, plotter drawing. 60 × 60 cm. (Reproduced by permission of the artist. Photograph Winfried Reinhardt, Pforzheim, Germany.)

Figure 14.4

Paul Brown. Builder/Eater. 1977 (re-created 2014), real-time computational generative artwork, size variable. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 14.5

Roman Verostko. Flowers of Learning, Black Elk. 2006, plotter drawing with pen-and-ink, 76 × 101 cm. One of seven units in a twenty-five-foot installation. Spalding University, Louisville, KY. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 14.6

Julie Freeman. A Selfless Society. 2016, online animation with sound. JavaScript with HTML5 canvas element, real-time data from a colony of naked mole rats, variable size. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 14.7

Alex May. Digital Decomposition. 2017, interactive digital installation, variable size. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 14.8

Kate Sicchio. Hacking Choreography. 2014, performed by Philippa Lockwood and Elissa Hind at Waterman’s Art Centre, London. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 14.9

Andrew Brown. Connections. 2013, developed in the Impromptu environment and exhibited as part of the [d]Generate exhibition of digital generative art at the Gympie Regional Gallery. See color insert. (Reproduced by permission of the artist.)

Figure 14.10

Mark Fell. 64 Beautiful Phase Violations. 2013, installation view at BALTIC 39. (Reproduced by permission of the artist and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. Photograph by Colin Davison.)

Figure 14.11

Alex McLean performing at Algorave Karlsruhe, 2015. See color insert. (Photograph by Rodrigo Velasco.)

List of Box

Box 11.1