movie: generative artworks by Celestino Soddu, since 1986 to 2019

subsequent text in voice

The Generative approach is characterized by a peculiar type of creativity and not, as identified by some critics, by a reference to a type of technique. Generative Art is not a category of tools that we can use in our creative action but a way to develop our creativity. As Poincarè said, creativity is putting together some existing events by defining the structure of relationships among them. The result of the creative act can be evaluable following the category of beauty. This means that the evaluation of the creative act is fully subjective or, if we prefer, intersubjective. The generative approach fully reflects the Poincarè approach to creativity.

Why does this happen? The reason why we could choose to follow a generative approach in our making Art, Architecture, Music, Literature, and Design is that the result of the generative approach is not unique but is configured as a set of variations. This means that, when we create a generative artwork, we are creating a meta-project, a definition of a species of events, as in Nature, a type of basic genetic code that can be used, following the possible constraints by the environment, for generating multiple events all different but all belonging to the same species, to the same Idea. Quoting René Thom, we are running a complex chaotic system, and, creating a new paradigm, we are managing a moment of discontinuity able to discover new possible ways to shape the incoming future.

More, with a generative approach, we can create an Idea before each possible formalization of a result, of a configured artwork. The possibility to construct an Idea, as meta-project of possible incoming results, is the main interest of the generative approach. This possibility identifies the peculiarity of generative art. Tools that we can use are only tools and they could be different and referring to different technologies and disciplines. If we design a structure able to generate different events, all recognizable as belonging to an identifiable Idea, we are inside Generative Art.

How we can pursue this result? By two steps. The first one is peculiar to each project. It is the first idea structured as a topological paradigm. The second is the creation of transforming algorithms. They are usable on all subsequent occasions because they are open to being used for transforming different events and these algorithms are identifiable as belonging to a peculiar author. The topological paradigm is the result of a creative act: it defines the relationships among all the events involved in the project. It does not define forms but relationships. it’s possible to define also a form, but only as meta-form, identified as a structure of possible different formal events whose relations are defined by characters. All events and their relations must be identified by characters and this complex meta-system is the structure for generating the multiple variations of the result. This paradigm defines a possible incoming novelty made by our subjective creative approach. The characters of events and relationships can be defined by algorithms, by transforming rules. The identity of each event cannot be identified by a static definition. The Identity, as the identity of a person, as the identity of music, also of a natural event can be defined only as the way to pursue the future. In a generative approach, the characters of each event and each relationship among events can be defined by the way to transform the events for reaching a possible future vision. In this way, defining it is easy and these algorithms can be used for different events on different occasions. They become part of the subjective background of each artist, where the paradigm identifies each different idea of each different project.

A strong cultural chance of the generative approach is the need to refer to the Past. Creativity, focused by paradigm as “new” relationships among existing events needs these previous events to be considered. This is how to refer to the Past. The transforming algorithms, on the other side, need to define how to evolve the past to the future, and this is strongly inside the consideration that nothing is possible if we forget the Past. Futuring Past is the generative way to shape the Future.

Considering the creative acts as shaping a subjective paradigm by interpreting the Past redefines the subjectivity as an important way to construct a link between artworks and the author. The cultural approach of the last century, based on the death of the author, is changed and the generative approach rediscovers the author.

More, the actual innovation of Artificial Intelligence, the singularity, rediscovers uniqueness, and subjectivity as the main ways to manage the complexity of incoming contemporary systems. Following that the Generative Art can support the singularity in AI. This delineates the future of Generative Art: Generative Artificial Intelligence based on the management of subjectivity as a paradigm of interpretation consolidates the link between Past and Future.

In the movie, Generative Art, Architecture, Design, and Music by Celestino Soddu. The artworks cover the last 35 years of creativity using Argenia, his generative software.