Algorithmic Expressionism and the Landscape of Madness

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Landscape Inversion

This project began with a whimsical idea: to invert the convention of landscape painting on canvas—one of the most ubiquitous motifs in art history. Instead of painting a scene or vista onto the canvas, I imagined an algorithmic domain shaped by the flowing material properties of the canvas itself.

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Mark Making and the Digital Surface

Bold gestural markings within this algorithm also evolved into a way of defining scale and movement in the landscape. They serve as a bridge between the illusion of receding depth and the true flatness of the digital surface. For centuries, bold brushstrokes—evidence of the painterly act—have created intentional tension between illusionism and the physical reality of the canvas. The gestural marks in this series, although complex and layered, are still clearly derived from rudimentary vector-based primitives. Preserving the evidence of a digitally native process is my reinterpretation of this same artifact found in representational painting.

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Gesture and Abstraction

Algorithmic mark making reminiscent of human gesture is not really abstract. They are more representational of artifacts created by the human skeleton in the creative act. Through this association gesture seems to have a direct expressive path to our deep human emotions. When gestures become incoherent and turbulent, something in us feels this as a kind of violence. Although Amplitudes of Canvas started life as gently flowing landscape-esk forms, the use of gesture became stronger and the spectrum of movement and expressive power of the work ramped up considerably. The addition of the floor plane reminded me of Victorian hospital rooms. In some of these works emerged the traces of an asylum, a container for the more extreme gestural madness appearing at the out edges of the algorithm's expressive space.

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The Infinite Sketchbook of a Mad Person

Outputs are like sketches in the sense they are only glimpses into the totality of the algorithm. They are never fully crystalized. They are like the outflow of a mad person because the insane often get caught in loops, obsessing over the same patterns. Through their interaction with the world, the patterns get expressed in varied ways, each time new, but recognizable as belonging to the same behavior. The mad person compared to the average person thus has a limited range of functionality and adaptability. The algo can only explore a tiny space of possibilities compared to say the space of all art. It is still an infinite space, but not all infinities are equal.

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Expressionism and Madness

It seems likely that expressionism has been linked to madness in the past, both academically and by the casual observer. De Kooning’s Woman paintings have a ferocious presence and are wonderfully disturbing. Alcoholic, bad tempered Pollock expresses a destabilizing frenetic power. Rothko, who was the counter type in the movement painted sacred meditative works, but killed himself. Rothko was on record as saying he wanted to paint the deep human emotions. This has always been my hope. I feel I consistently fail, but make tiny steps towards that goal. It is not at all obvious how to progress when working in the domain of abstract art. I do feel however, that when literal representation in Art is set aside there is a more direct path to the human heart for those artists who achieve it.

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Text as Texture

The cursive writing in these works are entirely algorithmic. There is no meaning, other than the meta meaning of something that looks like Pseudo notation. In the course of building the project I tried numerous ways to introduce the texture of writing into the work without finding a way that satisfied me. Text adds a textural depth to the work that’s hard to create in any other way. The writing also looks like the scribing of a mad person which seemed to tie in nicely with the emerging feeling of madness in some of the outputs. I call these bands of cursive texture - Notes from the Asylum.

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Algorithmic Process vs Skeuomorphism

Creating surfaces that look worn and discolored might be seen as skeuomorphic, however I feel there is an honesty to this type of treatment because objects in real life are also typically aged in an algorithmic way. Usually through a repetition of partially constrained movements and patterns of specific interactions. The intrinsic visual properties we find comforting and fascinating in antique surfaces can be created in generative art in a very direct and authentic way. When I remove these layers of textural distress the underlying work is often somewhat unapproachable and cold. I feel the compositional flow is also softened and unified by the addition of algorithmic distress. Transitions are easier to visually digest and the overall visual variety and interest of the surface is increased. Perhaps what’s more important is there is a sense in which the art has settled into the physical world and has had interactions with it. Of course this is a lie but every story we tell in art is a lie. When creating the distress marks I am careful to leave the simple circle and line primitive building blocks at a scale that makes it easy to see on close examination how the art is constructed. This reveals the truth about the lie and creates visual tension between the illusionistic and abstracted mark making.

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Recursive Curation

Amplitudes of Canvas uses this new type of structure that enables me to evolve the algorithm over a long period of time without losing outstanding outputs from the previous versions. It's a little like the fx(hash) Open Form model, but only I am in control of what gets bred. All the breeding also happens prior to release within my studio. Every part of the algorithmic journey is contained in the single algorithm so I can put it fully on-chain and make it work within the very solid, but quite constrained Art Blocks infrastructure. Recursion refers to the fact I can use social WIP sharing to help steer new versions in the algorithm's evolution. If and when I share something that both captures my audience's attention and excites me I can capture the visual DNA of that output and use it as the basis to breed new children without losing previous outputs and version possibilities.