Jonas Lund Annotation

Annotation

At the Eyeo Festival, Norwegian artist Marius Watz, held a 50 minute long lecture, titled “Random Thoughts on Code And Form”, discussing the state of computational aesthetics and using code and software as a mean of artistic production.

Marius Watz is an artist based in New York/Oslo, and his practice is based on images and objects generated by code, in the lecture he explains that: “I’ve never thought creativity in any other medium than code”.

In the lecture Watz starts off with a short introduction of his work, and then continues with sharing his thoughts, sometimes erratic, on code within an artistic practice. He concludes the talk with proposing a new concept, Software Abstraction, which Watz views as an opposite to generative art.

Watz argues that the essential quality of code is that it’s plastic, it can change state and as a consequence, it lacks a materiality. However, software has a material quality, in the sense that the user choses how to configure the code, by for example selecting or manipulating algorithms, patterns and structures.

Watz proposes, Software Abstraction, as a term for an artistic practice that’s based on “visual / spatial abstraction through code and computational processes”. Wether it’s technology based, a hybrid or entirely distanced from code, it’s important to note that it’s not primarily concerned with technology. Software Abstraction is a formal approach with abstraction through logic, it accepts an object based practice and doesn’t require a technical component. Watz lists a few examples of Software Abstraction topics, like “kinect behaviours”, “software as instrument” and “improvised performative systems”.

Watz ends the lecture by showing a selection of examples which he thinks encompasses the notion of Software Abstraction.