July 27, 2002

2:27 AM

Generative ArtThe musician Jem Finer (formerly of The Pogues) has created a musical composition, The LongPlayer, that will play, without repetition, for a thousand years (made with SuperCollider). It is currently playing live at a London lighthouse. The Dream House is another example of a generative art piece, in this case one that was set to run for eight years. These are both examples of Generative Art, Art generated by rules. The GA community is an active one. Also, see Virangelic - a random composition generator. Art generated by Artifical Life swarms. NewZoid - A false News Headline generator. And, N-Gen - computer generated Graphic Design.
posted by vacapinta (11 comments total)

musical at length theme night emerging
posted by y2karl at 2:29 AM on July 27, 2002

Longplayer first came to the public's attention in January 2000 when it was the soundtrack for the Rest Zone, an area of the much-maligned Millennium Dome. The Rest Zone was one of the most interesting and conceptual zones in the Dome, unique because it had nothing in it whatsoever. The zone was like a womb-like chill-out room, with Finer's remarkable chiming music (made mostly from samples of Tibetan singing bowls) playing while gentle ripples of light crossed the ceiling. Beautiful.
posted by skylar at 2:30 AM on July 27, 2002

well, and then some..
posted by y2karl at 2:31 AM on July 27, 2002

And, of course, the strange generative architecture of Celestino Soddu.
posted by vacapinta at 2:42 AM on July 27, 2002

Coming soon--the strange generative architecture of dong_resin...
Be sure to wash hands before leaving restroom.
posted by y2karl at 7:02 AM on July 27, 2002

Great links... I was particularly taken with Viragelic.

And then there's the SSEYO Koan player, which seemed quite promising (to me, at least) back in, erm, '96? '97? Generative music netscape plugin. Vastly superior to cheesy MIDI. But it just never caught on.

I'm still looking for the generative music piece that extends Shriekback's Ceolocanth indefinitely.
posted by Gregoire at 8:07 AM on July 27, 2002

ars technica recently had this bit about the Continuator. it's "designed to learn a particular musician's style and then produce new musical phrases in that same style."
posted by kliuless at 12:02 PM on July 27, 2002

There's a book on generative visual design in Java, Director and NATO. Good read especially if you like the artists featured, like Golan Levin or lia, and want to hear their take on things.
posted by shortfuse at 12:55 PM on July 27, 2002

I was particularly taken with Viragelic.

Yeah, I've been playing with it for a while (its a screensaver too). Nice use of sound-loops (including human voices). I think the max is 3-4 layers. Pick 'New Song' until you get something interesting.
posted by vacapinta at 3:33 PM on July 27, 2002

This is really such a cool set of links that you and your commentators have given us, vacapinta. I'll be coming back here often.
posted by y2karl at 7:19 PM on July 27, 2002

thanks for the amazing links, all - it's stuff like this that keeps me glued to Metafilter.
posted by scribblative at 11:47 PM on July 27, 2002