Notes

Computer Generated Art

Above is a Piet Mondrian piece from the 20th century's early Dutch painter. Mondrian along with cubism, is one of the fathers in abstract art. His paintings, such as the one above are still being studied by historians and budding artists alike. His minimalist paintings marked the beginning of a new era in the field of art. Many art connoisseurs began to ask, "How much can we express with very little details?" Instead of asking, "How many details can we express?" Mondrian spent hours making sure that he used the right colors and that the squares were filled with the right colors. This was so gallery visitors could be awestruck by the way he expressed his emotions on the canvas. The painting proves that Mondrian was an absolute master of his craft.



Wait no, the picture above is not one of the most famous Mondrian piece It was created by a computer in under an second, using a program I spent an hour and an hour and a half on the other day. Here are a few more:



There are 100 more. Here's another set to Bach music in a short video that I created because I wanted to. In fact, I could even write a program that automates making videos like this. I would only need just ten lines of code.



Computer Generated Art



I'm sure it would not be too difficult to find someone who is convinced enough to believe that these are genuine Mondrian paintings, all you'd need is someone to claim they've got an PHD that speaks authoritatively and uses big words, and you're all set. In reality, you'll have a harder time finding skeptical people these days than those who believe. In fact, you might be able to find people with actual PHDs to play along. I can remember watching a video or reading an article (I would like to locate the source for the link here and so I could use real names) where an art teacher at a well respected college explained that on the first day of class he would show a picture on the screen and tell them that it was a representation of a painting done by one of the most famous abstract painters that worked at the same time as Mondrian did. He would then give his students a few minutes to analyze the painting before letting them express the feelings and ideas they thought the artist tried to convey. After giving them time to think and time for a few of them to speak, he'd pull out his smock and show his students that the painting they put all their effort into was not a painting in the first place and was actually a picture of his dirty smock.



Although I don't recall what the professor was trying to convey I do remember it taught me that anyone can be convinced that nearly anything is art. Artists are becoming obsolete, this is a topic that I've touched on in the past. I wrote a program which could create more Mondrian imitations in less than two hours than Mondrian could have achieved throughout his entire career. While no one has invented an oil painting robot yet, it is only a matter of time until an uninitiated professor decides to invest the taxpayer dollars he was allocated on building one.



Computer-generated art isn't the future, it is already present. Minecraft is the most played video game and despite developing, it barely employs artists since the bulk of Minecraft's beautification of its visuals is accomplished by an algorithm. There are numerous Reddit threads that show off the beautiful "naturally generated landscapes" of Minecraft. These are people admiring art created by computers rather than a human. Minecraft isn't the sole game that is like this. Many video game developers have abandoned the idea of creating maps and levels and instead opted to have computers create a completely unique world for each player, often procedurally.



Unfortunately the fine art community has yet to embrace this. A lot of people consider Mondrian's work to be sacred and the png images that my program generates as abominations (I am wondering what Mondrian would think of my program). STEVELARESE.COM Their culture, and indeed their whole system, aren't prepared to face the future that is already here. Computer-generated images, worlds, personalities, and characters are already in existence. It is only a matter of time before we can have computer-generated films and music. The idea that the entire entertainment industry could fall into the hands of a handful of AI overlords doesn't sound all that far fetched. Most people won't care because they're unable to tell the difference between a Mondrian painting or an unintentional collage created by a computer.


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