Lecture : A Machine that Makes Art @ Richmond Art Society

On Wednesday 20th November, I’m giving a lecture at the Richmond Art Society:

(Guests are welcome, please see the website)

8pm @ Richmond The American International University in London
Queen’s Road, Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey, TW10 6JP

The inspiration for this talk comes from the great conceptual artist Sol LeWitt’s statement, The idea becomes a machine that makes the art (1967). Although LeWitt’s ‘machine’ was metaphorical rather than literal, nevertheless this radical concept raised questions about the notion of art process and creative behavior and challenged the notion of what art was or could be.  To what extent does the hand of the artist need to be involved in the art-making? Artists such as David Hockney (on the iPad), Julian Opie, Jessica Steinkamp and others use computer code of simple instructions to generate complex and visually arresting art works.  So why, more than 40 years after Le Witt’s comment, is it still such a leap of faith for some in the mainstream art world to conceive of the involvement of a machine like a computer?  We will explore the use of computing and digital systems in art today.

Expanded Evolution

William Latham, Mutator 2 Evolving Form, 2013. Copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.
William Latham, Mutator 2 Evolving Form, 2013. Copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.

Bizarre, strange mutated forms looming out of computer space; William Latham is a gardener steering and evolving forms within a kind of virtual evolution.  These images lead
us to imagine we are being allowed in on the secrets of the universe.  Following on from his exhibition in Brighton, William is my BCS featured artist for the month of November: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/51594