"Man kann soweit gehen, große Teile des ästhetischen
Produktionsprozesses unter dem Anzahlaspekt zu betrachten: Künstler
wechseln den ästhetischen Raum, wenn eine genügend
große Anzahl von Objekten darin realisiert worden ist
- vom Künstler selbst oder von anderen; wenn sie herausfinden,
daß ein solcher Raum schon besetzt ist; Künstler
suchen sich "große", "offene" Räume. Die Definition
der ästhetischen Räume selbst ist natürlich das
eigentliche Problem. Die zwei extremfälle sind der Raum
aller überhaupt möglicher Bilder, der alle anderen
ästhetischen Räume enthält, sowie die durch jedes
einzelne realisierte Bild definierten Räume, die keinen
anderen Raum enthalten."
Frieder Nake: Ästhetik
als Informationsverarbeitung. Vienna/New York: Springer
Verlag, 1974, p. 104.
Nake proposes to analyse artistic styles as "aesthetic
spaces": sets of possible pieces. Individual artworks evoke
the spaces they inhabit, and become superfluous once these spaces
have become sufficiently well-established. Art history is thus a
trajectory through the set of all possible "aesthetic spaces".
Generative Art implements explicit mathematical definitions of Nake's
aesthetic spaces. It thus may speed up the art-historical process:
every program is a style, rather than an individual piece.
Nake's set of all aesthetic spaces has the structure of a semi-lattice.
At the bottom of this directed graph are all individual art pieces;
the graph has a unique root which is the aesthetic space encompassing
all other aesthetic spaces.
Most generative art has implemented very constrained aesthetic spaces:
slight generalizations of individual artworks, with less variety
than a short period from the oeuvre of a mediocre formalist artist.
The speed-up of art history is not realized in this way; this branch
of generative art is therefore rightly ignored by the museum scene.
Nake's formulation, however, immediately suggests a much more interesting
challenge: to articulate the semi-lattice of all aesthetic spaces,
i.e., the definition of an all-encompassing "style to end all
styles", which subsumes all (and only all) styles and substyles
down to the level of individual pieces. To actually do this, is
a research project which will take at least several decades. At
the Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam the project "Artificial"
is a first attempt in this direction.
It is not obvious that the semi-lattice of all possible aesthetic
spaces has one objectively valid structure. It may turn out that
its definition involves many decisions which manifest the personal
commitments of its designers. Though the project starts out in a
completely scientific spirit, it may thus end up being an "art
project" in a traditional sense, with subjective, expressive
components. The step is nonetheless worth taking, because the project
will certainly be able to transcend the arbitrary and idiosyncratic
nature of current art.
Bibliography
Peter
van Emde Boas: "Mechanized
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Huge
Harry: "On the Role of Machines
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Huge
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Tools & Tales), January 30, 1994.
Huge
Harry: "A Computer's View
on the Future of Art and Photography." In: Si Yuill (ed.): STRUT.
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Remko
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Informatie en Informatiebeleid 6, 4 (1988), pp. 73-80.
Remko
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Perspektief 37 (1989), pp. 4-10.
Remko
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Remko
Scha: "Towards an Architecture
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Dirk
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Chance