This article was taken from the May 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Who are today's cutting-edge artists? Certainly not Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin. How about Scott Draves, a computer scientist and software artist who makes art with algorithms? His groundbreaking Fractal Flames was the first ever open-source graphics software, generating brilliantly coloured, constantly changing images that conjure up feathers, galaxies, coral reefs and all sorts of unidentifiable symmetric and asymmetric forms.
Draves' Generation 243, currently on display at Carnegie Mellon School for Computer Science in Pittsburgh, is a work of abstract art produced by algorithmically generated genetic open-source codes. The designs are whittled down through crowdsourcing and Draves' own preferences. The piece is made up of 150 separate video segments placed in a database, randomly selected and continually morphing into one another. One segment can be different colours, another conjures up a brilliant sun in the night sky, another is composed of iridescent threads knotted together. It's been described as "conceptually beautiful and visually engaging" by the computer scientist Peter Lee.
And there's Stelarc, a performance artist who reflects on the radical changes human bodies undergo. Some humans already have metal hips, metal knees and a pig's heart -- his art takes this several steps further. In 2006 he began growing an ear on his left arm through a series of ongoing operations. The ear is made up of Stelarc's own stem cells woven into a biodegradable frame in the shape of an ear. Eventually a Bluetooth device will be inserted to connect the ear to the internet.
Stelarc also created Exoskeleton, a 600kg prosthetic machine with six legs driven by 18 pneumatic actuators. He stands in the middle of this huge device and pilots it using arm gestures. It's his comment on how technology and humans will merge in the future -- a future in which cyborgs may be operated by our brains with the rest of our bodies becoming obsolete.
These two artists' work is part of an exciting new movement that merges science with technology to create works of art in which not just the finished product but the equipment or codes generating it can be considered as part of the work. Our notions of art and aesthetics are two concepts that continually undergo redefinition. In order to interact with this new world, today's artists have to not only work with science and technology but be scientists and technologists themselves.
Leonardo da Vinci, the visionary who considered his groundbreaking drawings of submarines and aeroplanes to be just as much art as the Mona Lisa or The Last Supper, would not have been surprised. This is our new century's new avant-garde.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
