Object and Identity in a Digital Age
CHArt 25th ANNUAL CONFERENCE
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Object and Identity in a Digital Age
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Ernest Edmonds, University of Technology Sydney
The Software in Art
In Generative Art the artist specifies their intentions and a computer program builds the artwork from that specification. Many new possibilities arise from this development and a number of challenges also present themselves.
In visual art, for example painting, the artist works directly with the materials that form the final work. In traditional western music, on the other hand, the composer will normally work with a score, which is an abstract representation of their intentions. The adequacy of such representations largely depends upon the composer's ability to mentally map the notation to sound. The one-to-one nature of the notation used makes it relatively easy to move between abstract and concrete representations of the music. However, this exact mapping between representations does not apply to generative art.
The art theorist, Goodman, drew an important distinction between what he called notional and non-notional works of art. In a novel, for example, he argued that any sequence of letters that corresponds with the original text is a genuine instance of the work. From this point of view, we can see art that involves significant programming is more conceptual than, for example, traditional painting.
‘In conceptual art the idea of concepts is the most important aspect of the work ... (t)he idea becomes a machine that make the art’ (Sol Lewitt).
The idea, the system, the concept or the computer program can be thought of as invisible. The boundaries of art are changed by the advent of software. In practice, the software itself becomes a key component of the art (if not its core) and the art object becomes the implementation of the work in Goodman's meaning. In this sense, art becomes more conceptual than before.
The computer enhances the artist’s ability to shape the underlying structures of art works and art systems. This is because the computer enables us to define the structure and organization of data in a new way. We are able to define the dynamics of that data: how it changes and develops in time and as a result of interactions with the world. As a result, an artist can define the underlying structures that they are concerned with and let the computer system put them into practice. The computer enables the artist to work at the level of structure and organization, leaving the realisation to automatic processes.Where and what is the material that is fashioned into the art object?
Ernest Edmonds was born in London and now lives and works in Sydney, Australia. His art is in the constructivist tradition and he first used computers in his art practice in 1968. He first showed an interactive work with Stroud Cornock in 1970 at the CG70 exhibition in the UK. Ernest Edmonds first exhibited a generative time-based computer work in London in 1985. He has exhibited throughout the world, from Moscow to LA. His current work is developing from a concern with interaction to an exploration of generative art systems that evolve over long periods of time as they are influenced by the world around them. Ernest Edmonds has been an invited presenter in, for example, the UK, France, the USA, Australia, Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia. He has many publications in the fields of art, creativity and interaction. In 2005 Artists Bookworks (UK) published his book ‘On New Constructs in Art’. Since the 1970s he has pioneered the development of practice-based research in art, systems and digital technology. He is currently Professor of Computation and Creative Media at the University of Technology Sydney and Editor-in-Chief of Leonardo Journal’s Transactions.