class materials index

 

SM2220 Generative Art & Literature

Linda Lai

Examples of Generative Art in the visual arts and other art forms

(revised on January 24, 2007)

 

Bridget Riley (b. 1931)

 

Riley’s paintings exist on their own terms. Her subject matter is restricted to a simple vocabulary of colors and abstract shapes. These form her starting point and from them she develops formal progressions, color relationships and repetitive structures. The effect is to generate sensations of movement, light and space: visual experiences which also have a strong emotional and even visceral resonance.

 

http://www.bildindex.de/rx/apsisa.dll/registerinhalt?sid=&cnt=&rid=2&aid=*&query=+xdbpics%3Aalle%20+r1a_name%3A'R*'%20%20+r1a_name%3A%22riley,%20bridget%22&no=1&count=50&sort=no&rid=2

from: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/riley_bridget.html

American painter, the commanding figure of the Abstract Expressionist movement.

He began to study painting in 1929 at the Art Students' League, New York, under the Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. During the 1930s he worked in the manner of the Regionalists, being influenced also by the Mexican muralist painters (Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros) and by certain aspects of Surrealism. From 1938 to 1942 he worked for the Federal Art Project. By the mid 1940s he was painting in a completely abstract manner, and the `drip and splash' style for which he is best known emerged with some abruptness in 1947. Instead of using the traditional easel he affixed his canvas to the floor or the wall and poured and dripped his paint from a can; instead of using brushes he manipulated it with `sticks, trowels or knives' (to use his own words), sometimes obtaining a heavy impasto by an admixture of `sand, broken glass or other foreign matter'. This manner of Action painting had in common with Surrealist theories of automatism that it was supposed by artists and critics alike to result in a direct expression or revelation of the unconscious moods of the artist.

Pollock's name is also associated with the introduction of the All-over style of painting which avoids any points of emphasis or identifiable parts within the whole canvas and therefore abandons the traditional idea of composition in terms of relations among parts. The design of his painting had no relation to the shape or size of the canvas -- indeed in the finished work the canvas was sometimes docked or trimmed to suit the image. All these characteristics were important for the new American painting which matured in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Josef Albers

(1) “Homage to Square” series (1950s)

Frank Stella

(1) “Protractor Series” (93 paintings based on 31 canvas formats each with 3 compositional types)

Sol LeWitt

(1) “Squares with Corners Torn off” (1975) X
(2) “Modular Open Cube”

Dorothea Rockburne

(1) “Set” (1970) – inspiration from Mathematics
(2) “Radiant and Fields” (1971) – concept of units becoming more complex X
(3) “Drawing That Makes Itself” (1973) X

Jennifer Bartlett

(1) “Rhapsody” (1975-76)

Doug Huebler

(1) “Duration Piece No. 6” (NY, 4/1969) – photo series X
(2) “Location Piece No. 6” (1970) X
(3) “Duration Piece No. 7”
(4) “Location Pieces No. 7”

Sonia Sheridan

(1) mono-prints series based on one image (1963-64)
(2) “Unwind the Wheel of Time” (1979) – eight drawings X

 

Music / sound:

See notes on Serialism / Serial Thinking from last lecture of SM2202 Micro Narratives

 

Mozart’s Dice Game

http://sunsite.univie.ac.at/Mozart/dice/collaborate.cgi?tables=yes

Mozart's Dice Music was a `musical game' involving the putting together of musical fragments by chance (i.e., decided on the roll of the dice)

 

Video works:

Please refer to samples works by Bryant Hui, Kelly Kwan, and Ada Wong on CIL web-site. (See “Works” - Micro-narratives – final projects)

 

Digital works:

Spirograph Applet

http://www.wordsmith.org/anu/java/spirograph.html

http://dogbomb.com/spi/

 

Crypt Machine (Linda Lai + Keith Lam / presented at the Writing Machine Collective e1, 2004)

 

Advanced level:

Levitated, Jared Tarbell:
http://www.levitated.net

 

Inter-disciplinary works / photographic works…:

 

Five Story Building

http://www.varchive.org.uk/var/fivestory/pages/gallery.htm

 

Bernd & Hiller Becher: topologies, repetitive architectural permutations in photo sequence / formal generative system

http://www.diacenter.org/exhibs%5Fb/becher/

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_lg_14_1.html

(Water Towers 1980)

http://www.mam.org/collections/photography_detail_becher.htm

(Water Towers 1978)

http://www.soenkeziesche.org/projects/becher.html

Internet approach

http://www.artnet.com/ag/fineartthumbnails.asp?aid=2179

Art net

 

Lew Thomas: photo series – collage compilation, photo sequence / structural generative system

http://www.lewthomas.com/index.htm

 

Betty Collings: topological model (process artist using topological geometry to transform a minimal organic shape into multiple, biomorphic, inflatable forms; combining and juxtaposing forms to produce sets and subsets)

http://www.bettycollings.com/index.html

 

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