Leonardo

Comments on "Towards a Dynamic, Generative Computer Art"

Author(s): John G. Harries
Source: Leonardo, Vol. 22, No. 1, Art and the New Biology: Biological Forms and Patterns
(1989), p. 143
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575174 .
Accessed: 18/06/2014 18:29
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The MIT Press and Leonardo are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Leonardo.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.127.178 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 18:29:49 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

this beat is established. Arom reveals

the beat as a central element that underlies the complex rhythmic layers
in music from Central Africa.
My studies have found a similar
steady beat, which is the basis for
tempo relations in classic-romantic
music of the central European highart tradition, in essence from Mozart
through Mahler. We three authors
are by no means alone among researchers in musical rhythm and
tempo. The field is rapidly becoming
a central focus of musical inquiry. All
this inquiry seems to underscore an
important fact: that theory, and performance that is integrated with a
theoretical sense of how music goes,
must take into account the physiological and neurological aspects and constraints of our biology.
DAVIDEPSTEIN
Department of Music
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139
U.S.A.

Reference
1. I.J. Hirsh and C.E. Sherrick,Jr.,"Perceived
Order in Different Sense Modalities",Journal of
Experimental
Psychology62, 423-432, 1961.

COMMENTARY ON "THE
REPRESENTATION OF
DYNAMICS IN IMAGERY
AND MULTIPLE
DIMENSIONS"
In this issue of Leonardo, Arun Hol-

den reviews several applications of dynamical systems theory to the arts.

Some further examples are: VideoFeedback(videotape byJames Cruthfield
available from Aerial Press), Split (feature film by Chris Shaw, containing
extensive computer graphics by Rob
Shaw, shown at the 1988 Telluride
Film Festival), and MIMI (my digital
video instrument, described in High
Frontiers,October 1988).
RALPH ABRAHAM
Department of Mathematics
University of California
Division of Natural Sciences
Applied Sciences Building
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
U.S.A.

COMMENTS ON "TOWARDS
A DYNAMIC, GENERATIVE
COMPUTER ART"
In his interesting article (Leonardo21,
No. 2, 115-122, 1988), H. R. Clauser
describes aims and experiences so

closely parallel to my own that I feel

impelled to offer some comments
that may be relevant to his own continuing work and to that of anyone
else who shares his interest in a 'generative' visual art.
The development of a dynamic abstract art does indeed require a symbolic language if it is to be analogous
to music in the sense of being nonautographic-with all that implies in
providing the conditions for choice
and freedom. I myself use the EshkolWachman (EW) Movement Notation
[1] to support an approach in which
any shape is regarded, and uniquely
defined, as the result of movement of
a point or a line (producing, respectively, a line or an area). This I take to
correspond to the lowest levels of the
hierarchy in Clauser's scheme:
'marks' and 'visions'. Once a shape
has been formed (as the path of movement) it may remain fixed or undergo transformations or be translated in
ways again open to definition
through EW Movement Notation [2].
The approach can be applied to
generating static images using the
traditional techniques of visual art. In
this case the image is, as it were, produced by movements. Alternatively,
movie film can be used in making
process the matter of the work, but as
Clauser suggests, the computer is
today a far more satisfactory instrument.
The EW notation can be used to describe any movement and, therefore,
any shape. It could be used for defining the motifs deployed in rectangular grids or other organized spaces. It
can certainly also be used to develop
structured spaces that are not necessarily rectangular or even regular in
any immediately obvious sense. Working from the 'low level' of motifs,
more extended structures are
reached-and kept track of, even
when complexity and unfamiliar
('non-geometrical') forms are generated. This allows for a 'symphonic'
type of structure and procedure that
is consistent because they result from
the derivation of one process from
another rather than from the filling
out of a predetermined scheme.
The computer is a crucial factor in
making such process art practicable,
as I soon found out when I began to
use the movement notation approach
as the basis for a program (or suite of
programs) that can be used to produce dynamic compositions on a
monitor screen or to produce video

tapes by linking the computer to a

video recorder; this also can be used
in producing static hard copy or in
composing static work to be executed
manually [3].
The range of shapes that can be
achieved through the formal language of EW movement notation is
virtually unlimited so far as I can tell,
but it is nevertheless entirely subject
to control through a single set of
simple concepts; different kinds of
shape or movement do not involve
switching between different frames of
reference.
While analogies with the theories
of modern science can serve as starting points, there is no guarantee that
they will hold for all visual phenomena that can legitimately be included
as material of a generative abstract
art. But since the parameters of EW
notation are expressed as quantities,
quantitative series (logarithmic,
geometric, Fibonacci, etc.) can be
adopted and used generatively
(rather than represented), in imitation of nature's methods.
The first essential is, in my view, to
have a symbolic language that is, as
nearly as possible, comprehensive of
basic visual phenomena (including
especially those represented by the
lower levels of Clauser's hierarchy),
in order to avoid confining procedures to a limited part of the potential-which may be the case with the
predetermined constraints of a syntax
and rules if the latter are not supported by such a language.
JOHN G. HARRIES
Tel Aviv University
Research Centre for Movement Notation
Ramat Aviv
Israel

References
1. N. Eshkol and A. Wachman, MovementNotation
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1958).
2. J. G. Harrries, Languageof Shapeand Movement
(Israel: Tel Aviv University/The Movement Notation Society, 1983).
3. J. G. Harries, "Personal Computers and Notated Visual Arts",Leonardo14, No. 4, 299-301
(1981).

LEONARDO AS A FORUM
FOR LINEAR PERSPECTIVE
DISCUSSION
In a recent book review, David
Carrier asked, "Why,after such an extended debate, has it not been possible to achieve agreement about how
perspective works? Some time ago the

Commentaries

This content downloaded from 188.72.127.178 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 18:29:49 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

143