Generative Art

The rise and rise of generative art, particularly tools such as Processing – has spread to typography, with new abstract letterforms being created in an organic (yet still utterly digital) way. Although manipulating the code can control various factors, the randomness of the final output can also have a similarly raw, unique appeal to handcrafted work. New York-based typographic illustrator and designer Craig Ward has produced various generative art experiments, with often-unexpected results. Examples of Generative Art come from throughout art history, from the structured geometric tiling of Islamic Art to Minimalist artists who constructed works based on number systems and formal rules.

“The Bulk is a hypothetical higher dimensional space within which the eleven dimensions of our universe may exist.” It is also the title of Craig Ward’s ongoing project attempting to typographically interpret some of the abstract ideas, terminology and concepts in modern theoretical physics, quantum mechanics and cosmology.

In Minimalism these geometric shapes characterized the elemental or “bare bones” forms of art, which according to critics, represented the result of modern art's progression toward the most simplified form of abstract art possible, which then also helps build generative art from its most basic principles. The various implementations of these “generative” processes capitulate a range of results, from works that are strictly ordered to those that rely largely on elements of chance and randomization.

Generative art refers to art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system. An autonomous system in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that would otherwise require decisions made directly by the artist. In some cases the human creator may claim that the generative system represents their own artistic idea, and in others that the system takes on the role of the creator.

"Generative Art" is often used to refer to computer generated artwork that is algorithmically determined. But generative art can also be made using systems of chemistry, biology, mechanics and robotics, smart materials, manual randomization, mathematics, data mapping, symmetry, tiling, and more. Wikipedia

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/3315-craig-ward-the-bulk-of-reality

http://artsy.net/gene/minimalism

http://www.creativejournal.com/posts/172-the-bulk-of-reality-craig-ward