Generative art in the context of Post-conceptual art

Generative literature is poetry or fiction that is automatically generated, often using computers. It is a genre of electronic literature, and also related to generative art.

John Clark's Latin Verse Machine (1830–1843) is probably the first example of mechanised generative literature, while Christopher Strachey's love letter generator (1952) is the first digital example. With the large language models (LLMs) of the 2020s, generative literature is becoming increasingly common.

In the mid-1950s Jean Tinguely began production of a series of generative works titled Métamatics: machines that produced art works. With this series of works, Tinguely not only problematised the introduction of the robotic machine as interface in our society, but also questioned the role of the artist, the art work and the viewer. Metamechanics (French méta-mécanique), in relation to art history, describes the kinetic sculpture machines of Jean Tinguely. It is also applied to, and may have its origins in, earlier work of the Dada art movement.

Jean Tinguely created his Métamatic sculptures between 1955 and 1959. These sculptures are modelled in a way that resembles the aesthetics of the Industrial Revolution. The drawings they produce resemble, but also mimic mid-century gestural abstraction. The abstract drawings are produced by means of a motor-driven arm that holds drawing implements of the viewer’s choosing against a piece of paper. The result is a random composition of lines and dots in colours chosen by the user.

Generative systems are technologies with the overall capacity to produce unprompted change driven by large, varied, and uncoordinated audiences. When generative systems provide a common platform, changes may occur at varying layers (physical, network, application, content) and provide a means through which different firms and individuals may cooperate indirectly and contribute to innovation.

Depending on the rules, the patterns can be extremely varied and unpredictable. One of the better-known examples is Conway's Game of Life, a cellular automaton. Other examples include Boids and Wikipedia. More examples can be found in generative music, generative art, in video games such as Spore, and more recently generative generosity and platforms like generos.io.