New Show: The Game of Life - Emergence in Generative Art
Complex 2, Kjetil Golid
At Kate Vass Galerie, we realized that 2020 has been a challenging year for most people. But at times like these, we feel that art is more important than ever to bring people back together (even if only online). So when our curator Jason Bailey saw that the brilliant mathematician John Horton Conway had passed away from COVID-19, Jason wanted to make a tribute exhibition. We decided to support him in the tribute and to help bring art back into people's lives.
Among Conway’s many gifts to the world was his famous “Game of Life” popularized in a 1970 article in Scientific American. The game combines simple rules to create very complex patterns, ones that resemble patterns found in nature. In many ways, we believe these patterns and algorithms -- like art -- are what binds all of us together. In fact, these algorithmic patterns are themselves artworks when programmed and improvised upon by talented generative artists.
This online exhibition explores how complex visual systems can emerge from relatively simple algorithms to create art than can reframe the way we see the world. For the show, we have included four generative artists: Jared S Tarbell, Alexander Reben, Kjetil Golid, and Manolo Gamboa Naon.
eosinophilic_oblong, Alexander Reben
In thinking about how to show these works, we intentionally avoided simulating a viewing room or 3D environment that were meant to look like a gallery. Each of the works in this exhibition was born digitally on a screen, and it was our goal to show them in as close to the original format and environment as possible. Our efforts for the exhibition were primarily focused on the essay and highlighting the works and voices of the artists through a series of interviews that will be released over the next several months.
While we will miss seeing your smiling faces in real life (as there is no physical opening for this show), we are glad that having the show be presented online will open it up to a much larger global audience. We are planning to have Jason Bailey available for a Q&A to answer questions via video conference to bring back some of that human interaction that happens at live gallery openings.
Some of the artists in this show are committed to making their code available for free so that others can learn from them. While we support open-sourcing code, we also acknowledge that this can be confusing to traditional art collectors who question why they would buy digital art when others can see the image (or use the code) for free. One analogy that collectors may find helpful is to think of collectors who share paintings and sculptures from their collection in public museums. When more people can see the work, it increases its popularity, cultural significance, and the value of the work as opposed to diminishing it. By collecting the work of these artists and supporting them as a patron, you become a steward of the work and assure that the artists will continue to produce more work for you and the rest of the world to enjoy.
Substrate.GZB, Jared S Tarbell
You can enjoy the new online show ‘Game of Life - Emergence in Generative Art’ from July 14th here on Kate Vass Galerie and read the full essay on Artnome.