Using a computer program in art production can confuse and diminish the endeavor's value in the public's eyes. That is unfortunate since, in my view, it is a significant advancement in the development of tools for art and the potential of non-objective art.
Non-objective art takes non-representational art to another level. Typically it uses simple geometric shapes to create clean and straightforward compositions. Many people use the term "pure art" to describe it. The label of non-representational art is fraught with difficulty. It seems to mean art that does not reflect or describe known objects or phenomena. Still, logically it is impossible to consider an artistic statement without encountering some aspect of representation. Our brains are wired to form analogies and metaphors. Even minimalist art, often seen as purely non-representational, invites a sometimes very ambiguous point of view. Minimalist art invites our minds to perceive and find symbolism universal to the human experience rather than specific to nature or culture.
The deep-seated ambition of many art movements is to strive for universal messages and meaning. The danger in minimalism and "universalism" is that the interpretations of such art are not necessarily meaningful; a white cube or a blank wall is general and abstract but also banal and trite. Another issue is the connection of non-objective art to abstraction. The Cubist representation of human and natural forms is an excellent example since it is based on abstracted outside references. Pure non-objective art, on the other hand, is not abstract; it is generative of pattern and geometry, and its form is content itself. The message of non-objective art is overtly non-referential, and its meaning is built into the object's form in such a way that it acts on intelligence and emotion predictably; it is repeatable without much ambiguity and with a specific expected response.
The rules of communication of pure form are simpler than symbolic language communication; they are understood explicitly. The meaning is in the simple and direct perception; there is no need for symbolic reference or the completion of visual perception by abstraction through the brain and eye circuitry. That is not dissimilar from communication in music, where chords are perceived directly by all as tones of specific frequency combined proportionally. The response to a musical form and composition is meaningfully subjective yet understandable without representation or abstraction. Form in music is also its content! The recursive phenomena of music and non-objective art are their great strength; a more direct and clear expression of meaning and intention. The minimalist pattern music of Philip Glass is distinct but similar in construction to J. S. Bach's contrapuntal harmonic progression of multiple voices in a fugue. Both have echoes of mathematical structures and are invariant to cultural and contextual references. They are self-contained in their form of communication but powerful in how they elicit an emotional response.
My use of a programming language in producing non-objective art is inspired by two powerful mathematical concepts: recursion and isomorphism. Recursion is something defined in terms of itself, and isomorphism is defined as a map that preserves sets and relations among elements, a process of information and form preservation. Both concepts provide inner logic and the potential for artistic expression. The computer programming languages used to implement these concepts themselves give no meaning. They only decipher the intent. The form of the programming language has no content, but the translation of the instructions does. The computer's decoding process is an isomorphic process that generates a specific result, in this case, the progression of mathematically defined curves. A similar process in nature is in the role of DNA in decoding genotype (instructions) to generate phenotype (form). Here the parallel is not literal but mathematical. To me, this fundamental connection of nature to information processing is very intriguing.
Since my first use of computers, I have been fascinated by the idea that an aspect of nature can be submitted to the "rules of production" by a program to generate new rules, modify them, and then repeat the process if desired. Conceptually something is compelling and creative about such a recursive process. Appropriately formulated, it can generate any level of complexity or chaos in a very orderly manner. However, the creative process that is not explicit, but relies on iterative steps and implied rules, is significantly different from the traditional way of generating meaning. In other words, although the process that mediates genotype to phenotype is cybernetic, it is nevertheless capable of generating tension, resolution, and other classical devices of composition and artistic expression. The process is also inherently subjective since the iterations are filtered through personal artistic preferences; the final is as much a result of traditional esthetic as it is of the process of recursion and programming. The meaning of the art produced this way is still dependent on the directness of the message and the level of clarity. Art untethered to outside reference needs to contain the rules of interpretation in itself. Should an explanation of the framework be necessary, it would only diminish the message's meaning.
In my version of non-objective art, I use mostly "natural" trigonometric functions to generate form. These functions are mathematical descriptions of rotating and oscillating phenomena in nature, and they imply a connection to nature, not as a reference to nature or an abstract of nature, but as a construct of particular aspects of that nature, a form of narrow constructive realism, that on a deeper level is its reality. I see non-objective art as existing in its own framework but not separated from nature. As affine transformations are applied iteratively to the equations to scale, rotate and translate them, an overlay of lines and curves is created in exact mutual relationships through an inherently isomorphic process. The result is a primary perceptual effect of curves and lines and a second overlapping optical effect, similar to the harmonic layering in music. The shifting from primary to secondary perception creates an exciting dynamic that draws the eye across the surface and encourages viewing sequentially. This perception through movement gives me the ability to force the observation of the art to be time sequenced and not limited to one flat surface. Creating entire walkable spaces delineated with the deliberate precision of mathematical harmony is the closest I can get to creating a visual instrument playable in almost 3D.
Aki Z.K. July 2020