Jon McCormack: Turbulence

Last year the Australian Centre for the Moving Image published a book detailing the work of generative and artificial life artist/researcher Jon McCormack, whose work turbulence ten years ago in 1995 resembles some of the more recent generative experiments.

While Jon was probably more philosophically concerned with artificial biologies than generative processes per se, this recent book features a chapter written by the artist titled “Art, Emergence and the Computational Sublime”, which seems an apt description for many of the generative artworks seen on this blog and elsewhere. The notion of the sublime is one that has long been debated in aesthetic theories, and could prove useful in discussions of new media works. A quote from the blurb states: