Generative art rests on a creative principle. Generativity understood in this way designates the very mode of constituting the work and is not limited to the digital sphere. Its essence is not in the machine, the algorithm, the program code, or the blockchain, but in the principle according to which the work comes into being and according to which it acquires its internal structure. Every technology, every procedure, and every creative medium has meaning only insofar as it brings the principle into the manifestation of the work. The principle precedes execution and determines what the work is, what its foundations are, in what relations they may stand, in what way they may change, and why each individual manifestation remains within the same order. A work created according to a principle is not an arbitrary aesthetic form, but a concrete depiction of the logos that constitutes the work. A work is generative if it has come into being according to a principle that ensures its artistic validity, autonomy, and internal coherence. In this sense, contemporary generative art only reveals with particular clarity what belongs to every valid work: the work is not only what is seen, but also the principle according to which the visible appears.

Long-Form Generative Art

Long-form is a stricter form of generative art. In long-form generative art, one principle does not produce only one manifestation, but an entire series of individual works within a unified series. Long-form is a test of the internal validity of the principle, and not simply a series of broad scope. Every result of the system must be a valid work, and each of the works must be independent, original, unrepeatable, and at the same time coherent with the whole to which it belongs. Decisive for the rigor of long-form generative art is the abolition of subsequent discretionary selection. The artist does not select only the successful results, does not discard the unsuccessful ones, and does not correct individual works after their emergence. For this reason, the weight of creation is transferred to the principle itself: it must be sufficiently rigorous to prevent arbitrariness and sufficiently fertile to enable a multitude of different manifestations. If every member of the series must be a work, then the whole cannot rest on accidentally successful exceptions. The difference among the works must arise from the same order, just as each individual manifestation must bear witness to the principle that makes it possible.