As part of my PhD study, I would like to investigate the notion of 'generative aesthetics' in Network Art.
In 2000, Geoff Cox, Alex McLean and Adrian Ward had written an essay about The aesthetics of generative code. The major argument was "like poetry, the aesthetic value of code lies in its execution, not simply its written form". They compare code to language poetry. Another line is worth reading: "generative code has poetic qualities, as it does not operate in a single moment in time and space but as a series of consecutive 'actions' that are repeatable, the outcome of which might be imagined in different contexts." Due to the unique nature of code, once rules (simple and repeated rules) are setup and it can turn into a complex scenario which is unpredictable.
Then later in 2005, they have a follow up article call "coding praxis: reconsidering the aesthetics of code". This time, they are more focus on the performativity of code "code as per-formative: that which both performs and is performed". But again, it is also very comparable to language, such as this line " Code is only really understandable within the context of its overall structure — which is what makes it like a language (be it source code or machine code, or even raw bytes". On the other side, they also address the potentiality of code structure, see here: "The Operating System defines potential activities via APIs, the hardware defines potential functions via machine code, and yet these are implicit and mostly unseen. The performance is thus the result of many components, from a wide range of sources, interacting dynamically" (p.164) To a certain point, they address the notion of liveness here, " Many of the components are predetermined, but through the combinations of interactions combined with the dynamism and unpredictability of live action, the result is far from fixed as a whole." (p.164) There are two points here, one is the dynamism which allow interactions take place among components, not the code itself, but through the interaction with other interfaces. The second point is the unpredictability because you never know what will happen next or through the interactions. This is not only applicable to web API, but also calling for internal libraries/modules e.g system.os in python. They further discuss the notion of unpredictability using this line "‘generative’; that is always in progress, and on execution produces unpredictable and contradictory out- comes. It is in a continuous state of ‘becoming’ (to use Henri Bergson’s phrase)" (p. 167) Another interesting thing that talks about in the article (well i think it is not only limited to generative code, but a general program instead) "Code requires speculation" (p.169). They use the example of variable to talk about its function. Programmer need to fully aware how the variable to be named, to be used not only in the sub function, but how to pass from one to another, or to modify from one function to another and it requires "speculation".
However, one the major issues that I found is that there is no special attention to the notion of 'generative' which I think the important is 'rules'.
Next, I will look for research/art reference into this.
In 2000, Geoff Cox, Alex McLean and Adrian Ward had written an essay about The aesthetics of generative code. The major argument was "like poetry, the aesthetic value of code lies in its execution, not simply its written form". They compare code to language poetry. Another line is worth reading: "generative code has poetic qualities, as it does not operate in a single moment in time and space but as a series of consecutive 'actions' that are repeatable, the outcome of which might be imagined in different contexts." Due to the unique nature of code, once rules (simple and repeated rules) are setup and it can turn into a complex scenario which is unpredictable.
Then later in 2005, they have a follow up article call "coding praxis: reconsidering the aesthetics of code". This time, they are more focus on the performativity of code "code as per-formative: that which both performs and is performed". But again, it is also very comparable to language, such as this line " Code is only really understandable within the context of its overall structure — which is what makes it like a language (be it source code or machine code, or even raw bytes". On the other side, they also address the potentiality of code structure, see here: "The Operating System defines potential activities via APIs, the hardware defines potential functions via machine code, and yet these are implicit and mostly unseen. The performance is thus the result of many components, from a wide range of sources, interacting dynamically" (p.164) To a certain point, they address the notion of liveness here, " Many of the components are predetermined, but through the combinations of interactions combined with the dynamism and unpredictability of live action, the result is far from fixed as a whole." (p.164) There are two points here, one is the dynamism which allow interactions take place among components, not the code itself, but through the interaction with other interfaces. The second point is the unpredictability because you never know what will happen next or through the interactions. This is not only applicable to web API, but also calling for internal libraries/modules e.g system.os in python. They further discuss the notion of unpredictability using this line "‘generative’; that is always in progress, and on execution produces unpredictable and contradictory out- comes. It is in a continuous state of ‘becoming’ (to use Henri Bergson’s phrase)" (p. 167) Another interesting thing that talks about in the article (well i think it is not only limited to generative code, but a general program instead) "Code requires speculation" (p.169). They use the example of variable to talk about its function. Programmer need to fully aware how the variable to be named, to be used not only in the sub function, but how to pass from one to another, or to modify from one function to another and it requires "speculation".
However, one the major issues that I found is that there is no special attention to the notion of 'generative' which I think the important is 'rules'.
Next, I will look for research/art reference into this.
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