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Ming + PHP5 + AI = Pretty
cyberscribe writes "Project K++ just released its first alpha version today. The project aims to explore computer-generated abstract art using PHP and Ming. The name of the project is an homage to Wassily Kandinsky, father of abstract art. Caution: the Flash movies can be intensive on your graphics card. Other caution: hitting reload to see the next cool computer-generated abstract 'painting' can be highly addictive."
I always thought art made you question some aspect of the world around you. I guess this raises the question "who is the artist?".
Saying you do not think it is art does not mean it is not art, it just means that you in particular cannot find a way to connect to the images. I'm sure other people could (my mother, for example, was at one point very into Howard Hodgkin, a painter who uses apparently random strokes - I couldn't see what she was on about, but I would still classify those paintings as art).
Matthew
however, the work of programmers who created it could be considered art, the big difference from a painting is that this art is interactive.
the work isn't just the one image, it's the whole thing.
Remember that the algorithms that makes it have been created by someone, and probably tweaked a bit too.
all this tweaking and coding is not that much different to molding a shape out of clay.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Some people claim that artists do random things, and that computers can do art.
The real way to find out is to do some kind of "turing test" for art.
Art isn't about being pretty. Art is about emotional, spiritual communication between an artist, his culture, work of art, and public.
And you're saying this isn't? The artist is the programmer. His communication is the flash and how you interact with it.
The project itself really doesn't impress me. All the K++ people did was use a random number generator to generate colors, gradients, curve coordinates, circles, etc. The actual cool part (Dynamically genereated fully functional Flash movies through PHP) was all the work of the Ming library coders. This is akin to someone creating a spinning rainbow colored 3D cube in OpenGL or someone applying a ton of Photoshop filters to a cool picture of the sky. It looks nice to someone who doesn't know how it was made, but in reality, all of the challenging and innovative things were done by the person who programmed the library, not the person who used some very basic implementation of the library.
If someone could explain what makes this so groundbreaking maybe I'd have a better appreciation of it.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I seriously fail to spot the AI in this.
Random number generation is more likely, but I doubt any AI techniques are needed or applicable to this.
www.enterweb.pt
I see no great leap to conclude that, similarly, a "Turing test" for art would be biased and thus worthless if it solely had human judges. Art to me may be junk to you, and visa-versa.**
So any "Turing test" for art would quickly degenerate into something like David Letterman's bit, "Is This Anything?" And if you've seen that, you'll know how pointless this whole discussion really is.
* Of course, any computer that passed the Turing test would be just as biased at judging it as any human, which in a way proves my point -- only I can judge a Turing test to my own satisfaction.
** Naturally, if a computer were capable of judging a "Turing test" for art, a computer would be capable of creating that art, thus mooting the entire discussion.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Abstract was always the lowest common denominator. Look at some real Abstract Art and compare, the lowly generated stuff to me is no better than a winamp visualization. Sure it can pump out as much visual stimuli as you will allow but what does any of it mean? Abstraction of thought still requires recognition of said thought in the first place or it is mere bullshit or automated bullshit. The human element in art is far from gone, computer generated music and visual arts have always fallen short imho.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Lest anyone think that is good abstract art, come take a look at my site. I computer-generate 3d abstracts. Also, I paint, draw and sculpt, and have been doing so since my youth. Now I have a degree in Fine Art, but still, you should be careful to just patently state that what you are doing is "pretty", because that is a relative term. What does it mean? What is the purpose? To attempt to generate an interesting composition, right? So why not generate it, decide it's interesting, and then show us that one? Why do we all have to sit through 999 bad ones to get to one good one?
stuff |
But the impact of post-modernist thought on the art world has made it such that it's no longer important what the initial thought was ... now the viewer decides, with post-modernism there is no objective concept. So, to spell it out ... it doesn't matter what the artists concept is so long as the viewer perceives that there is one!
Of course there's a case for us having entered post-post-modernism but it's not clear on the complexion of that value system yet, IMHO.
PS: I'm an objectivist personally, I believe in objective truth, lot's of people don't appear to though.