„Art and Construction“ (1957)

Historic quotes · „Art and Construction – Physics and Mathematics as Photographic Experiments“

Human and Machine — how they will work together to generate art.

On the occasion of the Generative Art Summit, the Foundation Herbert W. Franke published a selection of the English translation of „Kunst und Konstruktion“ as a preprint. A selection of important quotes by the visionary follows.

Technology often tends to be dismissed as an element hostile to art. I shall try to prove that the two domains are not opposed to one another. On the contrary: technology allows us to enter new and entirely uncharted artistic territory.Page 5 · Preface

The beautiful is not something absolute; it is nothing without an authority that evaluates it. In our experiment, you will be the judge who decides whether or not something is beautiful.Page 5 · Preface

When an artist picks up light-sensitive paper or film in order to mold an idea into a permanent form, with or without the use of a camera, then why should his work be any less artistic than if he had chosen paint and a canvas as his tools?Page 7

Every kind of artistic creation is bound to certain technical operations. The technical aid that we are striving for is all the more perfect the more it relieves the artist of routine activities. The ideal would be for the artist to be able to immediately translate his thoughts into real forms and then continue to meditate on his work until it is perfect.Page 7

I firmly believe that a process does not lose its ability to instill wonder when we succeed in uncovering some of the laws and connections that determine it. After all, what is truly wonderful is precisely the fact that a systematic order governs the internal and external phenomena of our world.Page 8

The unbroken progress of technology has everything to do with a remarkable characteristic of its foundation, the exact sciences: everything that has once been proven correct will remain valid forever. As a result, developments in the sciences always represent a step forward — sometimes a bigger one, at other times a smaller one, but never a step backwards.Page 8

Thus, we have found the answer to our question regarding the aesthetics of our abstract figures: their beauty lies in the fact that they are pictorial representations of relationships between physical quantities that are described by continuous functions.Page 20

As already mentioned, most processes in nature are describable by continuous functions. There are, however, some exceptions — processes that are described by discontinuous functions. But these processes are by no means lawless; rather, they follow a higher principle of order: statistics.Page 21

The intervention of technology in the visual arts and the performing arts is unmistakable. Equally certain is that a fusion between technical and artistic processes has been initiated.Page 28

I hope that no one will make the mistake of judging a work according to how it was created — with the implication that one and the same creation would be called a work of art if the label says that it was painted intuitively, whereas it would be denied the predicate „art“ if the caption indicates that it is the result of mathematical calculations.Page 29

In reality, what we did was shift the site of creative productivity onto another plane. Now it is no longer an unconscious and vague volition, but a conscious and clear intention that drives the creative process. The characteristics of a work are no longer left to mood and intuition; rather, they are determined by a precise and comprehensive knowledge of the applicable laws.Page 31

Ultimately, it is technology that opens up an unlimited range of all possible artistic forms. And now technology offers to pave the way for a new aesthetics. We should take advantage of this opportunity. The future has already begun — also for art.Page 32

Die Seitenzahlen beziehen sich auf den für den Generative Art Summit 2024 veröffentlichten Preprint mit Auszügen.

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