Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Art?
gz writes "The Whitney has put online an exhibit where viewers are encouraged to examine the source code of the program that generates the art, despite the fact that the majority of viewers have no idea what the code means. Projects use Java, C, Perl, Lingo, and VB."
Yep. Once it was posted on Slashdot it was inevitable that it would be an example of the artistic technique known as praecisio. Complete silence.
VB would be paint by number pics of Elvis
The 256 byte demo called "Tube" (Windows) from 256b -- a site for 256 byte intros.
:) It's generated on the fly as well, which makes it actually fit the "generated art" topic IMHO.
;)
Among the most jaw dropping experiences *I* have had at least. What it is? Oh, just a rotating 3D tunnel effect in 256 bytes without Direct3D, OpenGL or similar graphics engines.
Assembler source for compilation in NASM included.
As some one said: "porn for coders".
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
...I come from an art school background (now coding db-backed applications for websites, came to the field via graphic design like everyone else graduating from art school in the late 90s...), and have _long_ considered that code reflects much more about a program than the utilitarian aspects of a) "what does this program do?" and b) "how well is it engineered?".
My first "real" (snort!) job coming out of school was working with a team of other grads on the schools' website - within a week we were all able to recognize each other's code/quirks. And this was just plain vanilla HTML (among the least expressive of languages)!
the more interesting aspect is that of "code as art", in which the particulars of implementation (esp. the person doing the implementation) can invoke an aesthetic response, above and beyond the utility of that implementation. (or, in other terms, "much of what makes art interesting is that which is both pleasing and useless").
Anyway, I'm just happy to see that coding is beginning to be recognized as an expressive medium - whether it will ever be considered as such indpendently of the final product, I rather doubt (even printmaker's original plates/stones/etc. are rarely considered outside the context of an actual print run, and that medium is old old old...)...
tangent: this is perhaps one aspect in which open source coding (may not) necessarily result in the most "aesthetically pleasing" code; while the actual architecture of the program may be elegant and pleasing, the idiosyncrasies of any particular coder will be overwhelmed by multiple contributions to a project, (outside of the project leads who may be able to enshrining their own quirks as style/pattern requirements). However, I tend to find most "art by committee" to be lacking a very strong vision, and instead ends up becoming a whole ends up as simply the sum of its parts.
I may be wrong, just throwing the idea out there!