The Invisible Arp

This paper describes a conceptual generative art system built in the Cloud, which exercises a degree of autonomy in deciding when and for whom to generate art works, but bases its processes on the ideas of a dead artist. The philosopher Douglas Hofstadter claims that humans are basically just a set of patterns, instantiated in mortal cells, but capable of surviving after death. After a study of the works and writings of poet and artist Hans Arp, I have tried to identify some of the ‘patterns’ or rules that guided Arp’s artistic practice. These have been converted into computer code, and guide the generative system, in the hope that it can produce art works as Arp might do if he was alive today (not crude copies of his one hundred year old works). Participants at EVA 2018 are invited to judge how successful this has been. To emphasise the intangibility of the patterns, the system is hosted in the Cloud, making it as near as possible non-existent, in any physical or virtual sense. What are the implications if such patterns really can persist after death?

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Author and article information

Contributors

David Upton

Conference

Publication date: July 2018

Publication date (Print): July 2018

Pages: 354-360

Affiliations

[0001]King’s College, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2018.67

SO-VID: 12479095-27ea-4123-b830-388704550f58

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

Conference acronym: EVA

Conference number:

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 9 - 13 July 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2018.67

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

H. Arp 1948 On My Way. Trans. R. Manheim Wittenborn, Schulz New York
H. Arp (n.d.) Dadaland In: Documents Dada 2010 http://dadasurr.blogspot.com/2010/01/hans-arp.html (retrieved 26 March 2018)
H. Ball 1996 Flight Out of Time. Translated by J. Elderfield institutionUniversity of California Press, Berkeley
R. Barthes 1977 Image-Music-Text Hill and Wang New York. pp. 142 148 http://neamathisi.com/literacies/chapter-7-literacies-as-multimodal-designs-for-meaning/roland-barthes-on-the-death-of-the-author (retrieved 26 March 2018)
R. Doel (n.d.) Hans Arp and Zurich Dada http://reinhard-doehl.de/arp_zurichdada.htm (retrieved 26 March 2018)
C. Gideon-Welcker 1948 Arp essay In: On My Way Wittenborn, Schulz New York 119 124
Google Creative Lab 2018 Make Your Own Mondrian http://googlecreativelab.github.io/coder-projects/projects/mondrian/ (retrieved 26 February 2018)
D. Hofstadter 2007 I am a Strange Loop Basic Books New York
J. McCormack 2017 Working with Generative systems EVA London 2017: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts BCS, Electronic Workshops in Computing 213 218
G. Rimbach 1963 Sense and Nonsense in the Poetry of Hans Arp The German Quarterly 36 2 152 163 March

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Comment on this article

[1] H. Arp 1948 On My Way. Trans. R. Manheim Wittenborn, Schulz New York

[2] H. Arp (n.d.) Dadaland In: Documents Dada 2010 http://dadasurr.blogspot.com/2010/01/hans-arp.html (retrieved 26 March 2018)

[3] H. Ball 1996 Flight Out of Time. Translated by J. Elderfield institutionUniversity of California Press, Berkeley

[4] R. Barthes 1977 Image-Music-Text Hill and Wang New York. pp. 142 148 http://neamathisi.com/literacies/chapter-7-literacies-as-multimodal-designs-for-meaning/roland-barthes-on-the-death-of-the-author (retrieved 26 March 2018)

[5] R. Doel (n.d.) Hans Arp and Zurich Dada http://reinhard-doehl.de/arp_zurichdada.htm (retrieved 26 March 2018)

[6] C. Gideon-Welcker 1948 Arp essay In: On My Way Wittenborn, Schulz New York 119 124

[7] Google Creative Lab 2018 Make Your Own Mondrian http://googlecreativelab.github.io/coder-projects/projects/mondrian/ (retrieved 26 February 2018)

[8] D. Hofstadter 2007 I am a Strange Loop Basic Books New York

[9] J. McCormack 2017 Working with Generative systems EVA London 2017: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts BCS, Electronic Workshops in Computing 213 218

[10] G. Rimbach 1963 Sense and Nonsense in the Poetry of Hans Arp The German Quarterly 36 2 152 163 March

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