The Arts Center | Arts at the Center of Life

Artist's Statement for
'Calculated Result - Mathematical Art,' September 2011:
Much of my mathematical art falls in the category of computer graphic generative systems. Multiple drawings can be generated by a single computer program. Variations in drawings are, to varying degrees, unanticipated by me. My programs act as one step of a two-step process known as Stochastic, which requires a random component followed by a selection mechanism. In biology the random component is call a mutation and the selection component is environmental conditions. In my programs a random number generator recursively places random numbers into mathematical formulas contained in the code. I can’t predict what the graphical effect will be so a selection method is needed. My aesthetic judgment acts as the selection mechanism. I run my programs over and over until something is generated that I can work with.

While the computer art movement of the 60s, 70s, and 80s has fallen into the neglected annals of art history, art historians have recently installed at least two exhibitions in an attempt to bring the computer art out of the shadows of art history. I was invited to participate in one of these shows at the Block Museum of Art on the campus of Northwestern University in 2008. It was titled “Imaging by Numbers”. Another exhibition at the de Cordova Museum of Art just outside of Boston in 2011 was titled “Drawing with Code”. Museum curators hoped the show would “shine a new light on a darkened corner of the art historical record”. I and many other early practitioners in the computer art movement followed the lead of the philosopher Max Bense. Professor Benze was infatuated by the intellectual notion that aesthetic objects could be described in the symbolic language of computer code. Furthermore, Bense was intrigued by the relationship between rule-based behavior and randomness. Generative systems were the result.

Computers became partners, of sorts, in the creative process. I was attracted to the computer art movement because of the intellectual weight of Benze and other artists working this vein.

Artists as coders or “algorists” are few and far between these days as commercial digital tools for artists are plentiful. However, one does not have to rely on computers to create mathematical art. Anyone with knowledge of geometry can create wonderful aesthetic objects. I understand that Islamic art has ingenious geometric underpinnings. Also, one can create algorithms that are not couched in computer code. I understand that some of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings are generated in this way although I suspect LeWitt may have intended to be facetious. LeWitt was part of the Conceptual Art movement existent about the same time as the computer art movement. Conceptual artists believed idea trumped craft, choosing to describe or propose works that were to be crafted by others. Computer artists believed ideas, embedded in code, and then fabricated by machine trumped hand craftsmanship. In both cases, the hand of the artist is not relevant.

Artist's Resume:

Academic Degrees:

1964, Master of Fine Arts, Ohio University, Athens Ohio
1962, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Ohio University, Athens Ohio

Professional employment:

Professor Emeritus, University od Missouri
5/2004, Visiting professor, Nanjing Art University, China
5/2004, Workshop teacher, Shanghai Office or Multi media Design and Application
2004-06 Faculty Courtesy Appointment, Art Department, Oregon State University
Winter 2003, Fall 2002, Fall 2001, Adjunct Professor (distance) Image Engineering, Pusan National University, S. Korea
Summer 2002, Adjunct Professor, Speech Communications, OSU
Fall 2000, 2001, Visiting Professor, Image Engineering, Pusan National University, S. Korea
1991-92, Visiting Professor of Architecture, Texas A&M University

Affiliated orgs and galleries: