Research Summary

 Throughout this project I have pushed myself to keep it an intricately well-informed look into the algorithm, the technological and our relationship with these things as humans. Keeping myself well informed on these topics required utilization of a huge variety of critical voices, movements and theories, taking me down countless different avenues.

My first piece of research was essentially me trying to learn more about the fundamentals of coding, how a random number generator works, and how to apply these lessons in coding into an actually usable scenario. Quoting the artist and computer scientist Daniel Shiffman I was able to set up a solid foundation to take the first few steps of my project upon. I feel beginning in this way was so important, rather than looking at a well-established artist who has dedicated their life to code, I knew I needed to start from the very beginning to avoid becoming intimidated and uninspired.

Moving along from this, and after a couple of weeks of learning and becoming familiar with this exciting new world, I became more technical and specific in my research. Looking into the world of generative, or randomly generated, poetry I became vastly more aware of some of the applications of this genre of coding. Contrasting generative poems against poems from actual poets such as Leonard Cohen offered an incredibly exciting view into the delicate beauty of the algorithm as well as the delicate beauty of the human mind. This was imperative in working my way towards answering the question regarding what creativity is and whether or not it is reproducible.

Throughout the project I didn't only investigate theoretical/critical uses of the algorithm, but also actual artists utilizing, exhibiting, and collaborating with the machine in a variety of weird and wonderful ways. A terrific example of this is the work of Keith Tyson, an artist enthralled by the algorithm and the computational, yet when looking at his work it might not be clear that an algorithm is involved whatsoever. Viewing these artists works, hearing their thoughts and investigating viewer response taught me that working in this field doesn't need to be heavy-handed, it can be introspective, it can be thoughtful and above all it can be more of a collaboration with the machine rather than just using it. The discovery of this theme shaped the remainder of my project.

Researching more abstract thought and theory proved fruitful over the course of this project. Generally I would simply look at artists working in the same field, view their work and quote their thoughts and move on, but I knew I could do more this time around. Specifically I looked into the idea of the glitch, introduced to me through a collaborative project (as many other key thoughts, ideas and research points were). The glitch is a difficult thing to define, let alone research, which is what lead me to it. Beginning with its very definition and then lunging into its abstractions and utilizations within art gave me a far more clear idea of what the glitch is to me personally which allowed me to explore this more effectively within my physical practice. A key part of every piece of research mentioned is that it directly impacted my physical art-making process, whether that be through learning a new skill or being introduced to a new set of ideas or beliefs. In this case all information was good information to know.

My final piece of research was me trying to gauge the sheer amount of possibilities of application of the algorithm and the machine within a professional exhibition setting. Many of these algorithmic or generative works end up as a few pixels on a screen, I deemed it important to understand their actual real-world application to inform both the remainder of my academic year and the project as a whole. This kind of research consistently filled my with inspiration and gave me a plethora of ideas as to where this project could potentially go, reminding me that, even when I may hit a wall, there is always somewhere else to go.

Overall I feel this project has featured some of my most thorough and varied research sources, critical voices and investigations to date. I often feel uninformed about a subject area I may even be working in myself, but this time around I have consistently felt confident that I understand the context of what it is I'm doing exactly, where it could go and where it came from historically.