Generative Art with Jonathan McCabe
Upon first glance, you’d be forgiven for mistaking the work of artist Jonathan McCabe as imagery straight out of a biology lab. But upon closer inspection, the work of the Canberra-based artist is a concoction of mathematics and coding which produce shapes, patterns, structures and colours, suggesting that his art, like nature, is predictably unpredictable.
It’s the beauty of chaos theory in pixelated form. His work, complex and intricate and generated purely from codes that he devises, include collections like Butterfly Origami that sees umpteen multi-sized and multi-coloured patterns multiplying across the image, or in Nervous States where we see a marbling effect. His other pieces are similarly psychedelic, multidimensional, monochromatic, dendritic – almost forever forming. Drawing on mathematic logic from Alan Turing, known for cracking the Enigma Code, his work has also moved to video form.
We spoke to the artist about his process, the connection between science and art, and why the unexpected makes for a better work.
fluoro. In your own words, what do you call your art? How do you describe it?
Jonathan McCabe. My art is indirect. I’m using a computer to translate the text I write into an image or animation. The text describes a process that leads from randomness to order, a self-organising system. The process is based on a theory of pattern formation in nature. It is certainly in the “generative art” practice.
f. Tell us about natural pattern formation and how it relates to your art.
JM. I’m using two pattern-forming processes at the moment. One is called reaction-diffusion or Turing patterns. Alan Turing, the English mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the theory of computation and helped break codes in World War Two, wrote a paper in 1952 called The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis where he described a process that could plausibly generate some of the patterns and structures apparent in living creatures. This process spontaneously produces stripes or dots from an initially random state. I’m making more complicated patterns by adding together Turing pattern processes at different scales, which fight with each other over what state each pixel should be in.
The other pattern-forming process is loosely based on natural processes is a simulation of compressible fluid flow in 2D. This process added to the previously described process gives quite interesting effects, like marbling.
f. What is the typical process of creation?
JM. I don’t really have final pieces! I have computer programs that I have tinkered with for years, horrible masses of badly written code carrying out algorithms that I no longer fully understand. Sometimes, interesting things spring from these algorithmic compost heaps.
f. In your eyes, what are the pros and cons of generative art?
JM. Generative art can be very frustrating, as there is not much control over the product, only an opportunity to change the generative process. I have found this working for clients, when they ask, “can you change this particular thing?” when I don’t know how that particular feature arose. Generative art can be very productive, spewing out many related versions of an art piece in a way that is against the idea of a unique and special image, a kind of anti-art.
f. What criteria do you follow that determines your satisfaction in a new piece?
JM. I am most pleased when I get an unexpected result. Some of my 2D works accidentally look 3D and that intrigued me. My Dragon Bones series was very satisfying, a purely 2D process of multi-scale dendritic growth producing (clearly) a bone from a light-weight flying creature.
f. While you combine the two, some people view science and art as opposites (imagination vs. fact). What are your thoughts on this?
JM. I don’t see it that way. Scientific theories are acts of imagination. For example, Albert Einstein imagined what the world would look like if you were travelling on a beam of light, or how it would seem that there was no gravity in a freely falling elevator (showing an equivalence between gravity and acceleration). I wouldn’t see them as opposites – opposites would be art and anti-art, science and anti-science. Both science and art put a value on novelty, if it has been done before over and over it isn’t notable art or science.
My work is very similar to computer simulation in science, but I’m simulating imaginary systems, whereas a scientist would be trying to model something observed in nature.
f. What other forms of art have you been involved in?
JM. I used to really like screen-printing, mixing up the colours, printing large pieces of fabric on the floor. I’m sure my knees wouldn’t be up for that these days.
f. What projects do you have in store for 2016?
JM. I was quite excited to see Electric Objects, Framed and Blackdove. They are all treating the screen on the wall like a painting rather than a television. It seems to be a thing; I’m hoping my video work might be accepted on those platforms in 2016.
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“Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity,” said Alan Turing. Perhaps added to these facilities could be imagination – as McCabe explained, science and art are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There is a certain imagination, a certain intuition and ingenuity required to create something of value.
The work of Jonathan McCabe represents the value of imagination and the value of science, but more importantly, the value of both combined.
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