How digital artists use big data
Poetics of big data and its potential.
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Algorithmic art: from graphical and kinetic to digital
We encounter algorithmic art much more often than we may think. Ornamentation, kinetic art and digital generative art share common structures, grounds, and concepts. More about them—in our new column.
<h3 dir="ltr">When we hear about algorithms today, the first things that come to mind are AI and machine learning, social network feeds and advertisements. In one way or another everything that has to do with algorithms is strongly associated with computers. So would it be truthful to say that algorithmic art is always related to computers? Spoiler—not at all. Algorithmic art has a way longer history than we could have imagined.</h3> <p dir="ltr">Algorithms lie in the core of calculation, regardless if they’re performed by a human or a machine. Being a series of steps they lead toward the resolving of a problem or getting a result. So what makes an artwork an algorithmic one is, in fact, the principle of calculated evolution and/or repetition. Of course, we can always dig deeper as Johanna Drucker did by writing that “the algorithmic condition of computationally generated work is merely the case that demonstrates a general condition. Works of art, be they literature, music, visual, or performance pieces, are instances of rule sets. They manifest the possibilities of the conditions for their production.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Whether it is the linear perspective, Golden Ratio or a Fibonacci sequence that underlines an artwork, it is based on algorithms. So each time you see ornaments of the Islamic Golden Age, Renaissance frescoes or visionary architecture graphics by Piranesi or Escher—all of it is indeed algorithmic per se.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://cdn72109500.ahacdn.me/news/upload-470446613.jpeg" alt="" width="1024" height="683"><br>M.C. Escher, Day and Night, 1938</p> <p dir="ltr">It appears that algorithms do not always have to be executed by artists themselves and could be redirected to the audience. Christiane Paul pointed out that the “instruction- and rule-based practice” was taking an important place in various art movements including Dada, Fluxus and conceptualism as they had focused on the conceptual and participatory side of the artworks. For instance “score events” by Yoko Ono from her Grapefruit book 1964, or Marina Abramović Method cards (2022) by Marina Abramović are in fact algorithms designed for the audience to perform.</p> <p dir="ltr">The major moment when algorithmic art entered the world of digital art (and one of the first pieces of digital art itself) was in the 1960s when such pioneering artists as Vera Molnár, Frieder Nake and Manfred Mohr started to do digital drawings via plotters, based on mathematical functions. This new approach led in 1965 to the two first-ever exhibitions of “computer art”, as it was called at that time. Under the umbrella of digital art, both algorithmic and generative aspects were reunited. Being one of the first generative artists, Vera Molnár brought algorithms throughout her eight-decade career and reached the first major digital auctions.</p> <p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, kinetic and optical art focused on the contemplation of the movements and light was emerging. Based on mechanisms or computer software a significant part of kinetic art is algorithmic as well.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://cdn72109500.ahacdn.me/news/upload-2679330610.jpeg" alt="Victor Vasarely, Feny, 1973, image: artblart.com" width="1107" height="1103">Victor Vasarely, Feny, 1973, image: <span class="s1">artblart.com</span></p> <p dir="ltr">Within the rapid evolution of computer software and technologies and the AI boom starting from the 1980s to this day, algorithmic art has become more immersed in digital art. An art project aurèce vettier by Paul Mouginot who creates graphics, sculptures and installations using algorithms as a source of “raw material expanding conceptual possibilities and complementing the initial knowledge of art history”. Aurèce vettier explores the borders between the physical and virtual worlds.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://cdn72109500.ahacdn.me/news/upload-2855706148.jpg" alt="AD.VM.AV.IA, aurèce vettier x Vera Molnár, photo: Marc Domage: " width="1089" height="553"><br>AD.VM.AV.IA, aurèce vettier x Vera Molnár, photo: Marc Domage</p> <p dir="ltr">Refik Anadol, known worldwide for his site-specific three-dimensional data sculptures and digital paintings, uses machine learning algorithms to create abstract artworks. This year he opened Dataland—the first museum focused entirely on AI art. Krista Kim creates abstract digital algorithms as well, but, in her case, she reconsiders the modern state of this tool in everyday life. “Algorithms are everywhere, and they are controlling what we see through social media platforms, "sharing" and "liking" has created a narcissistic and egocentric society that is lacking in humanity and authenticity. It is our very "connectedness" on social media platforms that is diminishing real human connection”, she wrote ten years ago in her Techism manifesto. By turning this tool upside down, Krista turns all the disadvantages of algorithms into healing artworks.</p> <div class="interactive-block">283</div> <p dir="ltr">Alper Derinboğaz, an architect and digital artist used algorithmic modelling tools to process geological data for his project Neogene. The curiosity towards movement continues to capture the minds of digital artists, following their kinetic predecessors, including MAOTIK and IX Shells. Known as well as Itzel Yard, IX Shells created an educational group Creative Code Art, focused on algorithmic and generative art, using her background in Architectural Technology and Computer Science.</p> <div class="interactive-block">244</div> <p dir="ltr">Whether it is a captivating pattern, a sequence of movements or the funding core of generative art, algorithms play a significant role in contemporary art, both traditional and digital. With the evolving technology in art, algorithms are taking more room in the global art sphere. The question is— where will they take the art community?</p>
How digital artists rethink architecture
Major digital artists with diverse backgrounds open new horizons of interdisciplinary art.
<h3 dir="ltr">The digital era boosted artistic reinterpretation of architecture. Finally, creativity was no longer limited by physics and time.</h3> <p>For Ryan Koopmans, digital became a path to architectural revival of abandoned buildings. His long term project The Wild Within is a series of digital artworks based on real-world physical spaces. After many years of capturing architecture and urban landscapes as a photograph, he started to reimagine ruins of various buildings overtaken by nature. Post-apocalyptic and surreal Koopmans works in the meantime exude tranquility and harmony.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn72109500.ahacdn.me/news/upload-1620781846.jpg" alt="Ryan Koopmans, The Wild Within" width="1300" height="727"><br><span class="custom-span">The Wild Within Project, Image: thewildwithin.xyz</span></p> <p dir="ltr">For an architect and digital artist Alper Derinboğaz, big data analysis and generative AI tools opened the door to the emergence of one the oldest metals on Earth—bismuth. By demonstrating the transformation of this metal throughout hundreds of thousands of years, Derinboğaz questions the anthropocentric mindset and puts nature ahead.</p> <div class="interactive-block">246</div> <p dir="ltr">Refik Anadol who categorises his works as data-driven visual sculptures tries to maintain the connection between old masterpieces and their contemporary reinterpretations. Throughout 2021 to 2024, he created four artworks for the facade of Casa Batlló by Antonio Gaudi in Barcelona.</p> <p>In 2011 Derinboğaz and Anadol co-created an augmented data structure in Istanbul, Augmented Structures v1.1 : Acoustic Formations/Istiklal Street, declaring a new era of architectural reality: “No longer are objects or processes the constituting elements of a building. Now they are described as technical networks of communicating nodes, which balance themselves in contrived patterns.”</p> <p><img src="https://cdn72109500.ahacdn.me/news/upload-1091538431.jpg" alt="Alper Derinboğaz and Refik Anadol, Augmented Structures v1.1" width="1300" height="830"><br><span class="custom-span">Alper Derinboğaz and Refik Anadol, Augmented Structures v1.1, Image: salonarchitects.com</span></p> <p dir="ltr">Andrés Reisinger experiments with textile covers, honoring the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Many of Reisinger’s digital works later get incarnated in the physical installations all over the world. Mastering the light and various textures he brings lightness and floating to solid architectural structures.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://cdn72109500.ahacdn.me/news/upload-1840174528.jpg" alt="Andrés Reisinger, Sun/Leaf, Image: reisinger.studio" width="1512" height="1033"><br>Andrés Reisinger, Sun/Leaf, Image: reisinger.studio</p> <p dir="ltr">In 2021 Krista Kim made history by creating the “first digital house in the world” that bidded for over $ 500,000. Her Mars house is a signature example of Kim’s Techism movement that unites architects, artists and engineers in a creative synergy. Krista’s other work, “Mirror of the mind” took over the Sphere building in Las Vegas. She managed to show and to preach wellbeing and mindfulness in the heart of the world’s “entertainment capital” that never sleeps and never relaxes.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://cdn72109500.ahacdn.me/news/upload-1760687937.jpg" alt="Mars House exhibited for the “Let’s Get Digital” exhibition curated by Serena Tabacchi at Palazzo Strozzi Museum, Florence, Italy (2022)." width="1512" height="990"><br>Mars House exhibited for the Let’s Get Digital exhibition curated by Serena Tabacchi at Palazzo Strozzi Museum, Florence, Italy (2022), Image: kristakimstudio.com</p> <p dir="ltr">In May 2024, a renowned theatre director Robert Wilson with Cosmo AV studio created a digital installation Star and Stone: a kind of love … some say that was projected on the facade of the cathedral Notre-Dame de Rouen for the festival Normandie Impressioniste. Wilson, who believes that the light is ‘the most important part of theatre’ and remains for more than half a century an unrivalled master of lighting design learned his signature approach to the light from the architect Louis Kahn. Wilson’s nine-part work on the music by Philipp Glass and the words by Maya Angelou with the voices of Isabelle Huppert and himself in Rouen embraced the themes of art, war and environment. Colour abstractions change to the black and white massive ‘explosion’ of the cathedral underlining the fragility of the art.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn72109500.ahacdn.me/news/upload-1345490739.jpg" alt="Robert Wilson, Star and Stone: a kind of love..." width="1512" height="858"><br>Robert Wilson, Star and Stone: a kind of love...</p> <p>Even the recent opening of Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, newly restored after a dramatic fire, was unthinkable without a digital art projection on its facade. The projection was made by Jérémie Bellot, an architect and filmmaker by training, and by graphic designer François Deretz. with the music by producer and DJ Michael Canitrot. Founder of AV-Exciters collective Bellot says that he works in the genre of digital art(chitecture). Their show focused on the modern potential of the cathedral and its connection to the new generation. The moment when the entire building ‘broke’ into two pieces showed how close we all were to lose this precious architectural monument in flames.<br><br>Regardless of having an architectural background, digital artists remain very passionate about this field. In their hands, a building may become a canvas, a medium or a source of big data. The motivation, however, is the same—to broaden the spectrum of interdisciplinarity.</p> <p> </p>
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