Computational Artists

I had the pleasure of attending the FlashBelt conference on interaction design, architecture and computer generative art.  

What is computer-generative art?  Using computers to write tools to create art.  Within these tools are algorithms and interactivity designated to translate images in new ways, to recursively add geometry, and even to translate soundwaves into visuals.  The possibilities are pretty endless.

Click to view a Substrate Algorithm evolve.

The above video is by one of the artists, Jared Tarbell (cofounder of Etsy) who presented some of his computer-generative art. Here’s another generative artist who makes use of both photography and custom code written in Processing but also some publicly accessible programming API’s: Jer Thorpe. And here’s another person who’s busy taking complex algorithms and making beautiful things, Mario Klingemann. Below is an image constructed by Mario using a source photo and multiple texture images through a collage-making algorithm.

If you’re interested in taking what you know of computer programming and dabbling in generative art, there a lot of free toolkits to play with out there, some of which can even interface with electronic devices:

http://processing.org/
http://www.contextfreeart.org/index.html
http://www.hypeframework.org/
http://www.openframeworks.cc/

This blog tracks many innovations in the space:
http://www.creativeapplications.net/

If you’ve made something, post back here as a comment for others to see. Sharing code can help incubate fun new twists.