Lego Music

Greg Jalbert suggests a definition of generative art as...

"art where the main technique of development within a piece or series of pieces is an evolutionary process, like biological or physical evolution, or the evolution of ideas. This might mean that the intent of the work is to make evolution the primary message. Evolution involves a complex process of development with many possible influences. Much of art involves generative processes of development, selection of work for various reasons. These reasons include everything from emotional impact, to beauty, to commercial appeal, to personal fullfillment, to social propaganda, and more."

I think this a an excellent start to explaining generative art. With this definition in mind, I wish we would have ended our first class period with more of a solid opinion as to what generative art is. With such an opinionated group of people, the arguments and discussions we engage in are always interesting and insightful, but I feel that we never come to a closing point with anything.

Anywho, I would have liked to have the understanding of generative art I have now when we were given our first machine assignment. Although there was definitely an evolution of my Lego sound producing machine, I don't feel I thought about the bigger picture, or the process of the whole project and not just how to make my machine work, enough. It was a good starting point though, and I did take into account what I would do differently and the different aproaches that can be taking to our generative art.

The difficulties I encountered with my Lego Music machine were, for the most part, little additions and subtractions to the Lego structure itself. Process wise, my thoughts were quite simple. I knew I needed to use objects in my house due to low budget issues. The symbol was the first tool I decided to use. After a series of trial ramps, nothing seemed to be the right size or have the ability to become more structural to ensure my lack of involvement in the piece. Out of an insane coincidence I realized Legos would definitely be the best tool to complete my project. Think about it, you can make ANYTHING with Legos!! After many slight additions and subtractions it was a consistently working machine. I totally concerned myself more with the "rules" than the outcome, the effect, or the significance. It was a good starting point, and I saw many more factors that I considered in my second project.