Sustain your creative drive in the face of technological change

Summary

For a non-programmer, tell me about how you go about using a programming language to make generative art. This will touch on something that is unusual about how I use programming languages in general. The common practice in the industry is one that involves very slow feedback loops, these things we call compile-test cycles: edit, compile, test. I tend to use programming languages that are much more interactive. This is the family of programming languages that come down to us from the communities of LISP and SmallTalk, primarily. In these languages, you’re engaged in a conversation with the computer — your program is running the whole time, you’re modifying it while it’s running, and you can inspect the state within the program to see what’s happening. This is particularly good for exploratory programming, but also for art making. I can have a sketch running that is using a generative system I’ve created to produce some kind of visual effect. I could think, “What if this parameter were slightly different?” and instead of building a bespoke control panel to do that, I can execute a tiny snippet of code inside my editor that changes what’s happening in the program, so I’m still working in the same medium and I don’t need to switch to a different tool. I might start with a blank canvas with a loop running that is redrawing something, but it doesn’t know what it’s redrawing yet. Then I will gradually add elements, and those elements may have some innate structure. They may be drawn from nature in some way. Often, in my work, I will start with some natural system I found intriguing, and I’ll think, “What would have to happen geometrically to create a thing that has a form like that?” Then I’ll try to build a system where I’m planting the seed, but the growth happens within the simulation. I also do a lot of work that is inspired by different periods of art. Maybe there will be something Bauhaus-inspired; I’ll look at a pattern Kandinsky drew by hand and think, “What if I ...