Het Proces :: Exhibition until November 15, 2009 (see lectures below) :: Arti et Amicitiae, Rokin 112, Amsterdam.

Het Proces is devoted to “generative art”, as exemplified by the work of Peter Struycken, Remko Scha, Driessens & Verstappen and Jochem van der Spek. Artists who embrace this approach, design physical or computational processes which generate images and objects in a largely autonomous way. Generative art has an intrinsically conceptual component; it tends to involve theory and to invite explicit reflection. The exhibition is therefore accompanied by a series of presentations which broach some relevant topics for discussion.

Lecture: October 23; 8:00 - 10:00 pm :: Introduction by Remko Scha: Enumeration in Generative Art.

This talk discusses a particular genre within the generative approach: the enumeration, i.e., the systematic listing of all instances of a particular concept. The esthetic possibilities of this genre were demonstrated in the conceptual art of the 1970’s. A very ambitious application of the enumerative method occurred already in early 20th-century literature: the library containing all possible books. An equally far-reaching project was actually realized in recent digital art: the program generating all possible images.

Performance of The Chord Catalogue (1986) by Tom Johnson; Samuel Vriezen (piano).

The American composer Tom Johnson wrote many systematic pieces. The Chord Catalogue is one of his most rigorous works: it sums up all the 8178 distinct chords that the chromatic scale allows within an octave. Johnson: “It is not so much a composition as simply a list.” Music critics have described this work as “a pointed lesson in music history and the relativity of perception” (Kyle Gann) and as “a transcendental experience” (Matthias Entress).

Lecture: October 30; 8:00 - 10:00 pm :: Introduction by Remko Scha: The Prehistory of Process Art.

At the end of the 18th century, Ernst Chladni discovered his famous method for visualizing the oscillatory motions of metal plates. Since that time, many other mechanical image-generation techniques were developed. This talk reviews this research tradition, and its connection with contemporary art.

Lecture by Darko Fritz: Notions of the Program.

Darko Fritz curated the world’s largest historic overview exhibition of programmed art, presenting the case study of the New Tendencies (1961-1973) at the ZKM in Karlsruhe in 2008/2009. In this lecture he will show how the idea of “programmed art” emerged in the course of the 1960’s, out of three different artistic backgrounds: (1) neo-constructivism and lumino-kinetics, (2) computer-generated art, and (3) conceptual art. The presentation will be accompanied by audio-visual documentation from the 1960’s and from the recent ZKM exhibition.

Lecture: November 13; 8:00 - 10:00 pm: Abstraction and Concept Art :: Introduction by Remko Scha: Abstraction and the Image Ban.

The deep wisdom of the Biblical ban on mimetic representation becomes increasingly clear in today’s image-based society. In this context, abstract art and concept art regain their original, socially relevant
meaning.

Lecture by Taconis Stolk: Concept and context.

Concept Art aims at a purely mental esthetics, with its own principles of form and composition. This talk explores how conceptual art employs specific aspects of mathematical logic, and how a computational formulation of these practices may give rise to new forms of algorithmic conceptual art.