From Generative to Performing
This article proposes generative art as a framework for creating complex multisensory and multimedia experiences, characteristic of performing arts. Generative art is all art that in whole or part is created by means of an autonomous system, i.e. a non-human system that independently determines features of an artwork that would otherwise require decisions made directly by the artist. The artist will usually take on the role of a framework designer, and the system evolves freely within that framework and its defined aesthetic boundaries. If the historic, non-computer driven predecessors of generative art — especially algorithmic art — much impacted the early visual geometric arts, and more recently even music and literature, it seems that at present this cross-medium potential has been forsaken and most generative art outcomes are visual. It is the goal of this article to propose a model for the creation of generative performances, derived from stochastic evolutionary Lindenmayer systems.
