Medialab Prado

Generative art, a still largely undefined art form, has received contributions artists in quite different fields including Brian Eno, Adrian Ward, Joshua Davis, and Casey Reas.

The oldest works of generative art date from the pre-digital era but the form has clearly evolved greatly since the advent of computers. Many of those works were quickly reclaimed and reformulated once computers became available.

The presentation will consist of a review of the history of generative art, including a debate about different approaches to the form. A brief introduction to computing will illustrate its contributions to generative art and some of the art form’s earliest works will be shown and analyzed, as well as some of its most recent and characteristic pieces. Different means of distribution will be discussed, ending with a practical example of the process used in creating a simple generative work.