The Infinite Art Object
by Charles Csuri, 1998

The concept of the Infinite Art Object or the infinite series first began in 1966 with my images of "Flies" and "Random War". They were in the exhibition entitled Cybernetic Serendipity held at the Institute For Contemporary Art, London, England, 1968. A random number generator was used as a basic tool to produce a series of images dealing with flies and another with soldiers. At the beginning our software tools were crude by today's standards but the role of mathematical techniques for image generation was clear. We now have more sophisticated software to express instances or pictures where time and place is non-linear. There can be infinite viewpoints representing radical transmutations. However, with the constraints of the Internet and download times only finite images are presented with each series.

I continue to use the computer as a search engine creating thousands of representations of a theme. Each picture is different in the visual relationships of shapes, colors, light, forms and atmosphere in a three dimensional world space. It not just altering the viewpoint in a world but the relationships between objects and even their shapes, color and texture has been restated each time. The power and complexity of computer software creates these changes. This very process of change could theoretically continue until the end of time.

In my three dimensional world space objects range from people, flowers, trees, stars, planets, masks, horses, fish, dogs, and more. Within my computer objects seem to live in a world space and almost function like life forms. They are given behaviors and they respond to rules. Each of them has individual surface properties, their own lighting or even a personal atmosphere. Objects can copy themselves or change into an entirely different object at any instance in time. They alter their own geometry shifting between abstraction and representation. While I often select the first objects, there are times when a mathematical procedure determines the objects to be selected from a database. The first picture is the beginning point for the objects, which behave like life forms. I set initial conditions for the characters or objects in a three-dimensional world space. The conditions or constraints deal with relationships between position, rotation angles, scale, surface properties, lighting, fragmentation, linear representations, geometry, atmosphere and more.

With a custom computer programming language I use algorithms representing hundreds or even thousands of parameters. The algorithms determine visual elements such as color, lighting, surface properties (glass, wood, metal, bumpy, rough, translucent and more), camera positions, atmosphere, depth of field, etc. Programming strategies with mathematical concepts are used with a random number generator for variation and levels of control. Each picture has its own combination of parameter assignments. For every instance in time or picture, the software has a memory to keep track of the previous parameters to make the appropriate changes. The tools are far more complex than what I had in the mid-sixties. It is far beyond Tristan Tzara's instructions for "How to Make a Dadaist Poem" which consisted of cutting out words from the newspaper, tossing them in a bag, then pulling them out one-by-one in order to "compose" the poem. Or what the Surrealists called "objective chance". Their interest in "objective chance" was much more psychologically oriented. They were interested in those "chance" occurrences that seemed to be manifestations in the real or external world of personal, interior (and previously repressed) desires. I might add that if I have 10,000 figures in a scene each with individual parameters, it becomes too much for a mere mortal.

I establish the constraints or rules at an intuitive level. I do not use a formula for visual structure, beauty or the content. I use a range of numbers setting limits to position scale, rotation angles, surface properties, camera positions, etc. My years of experience with screen and world space, lighting angles for spotlights, the camera positions and assigned behaviors all come into play. I try to visualize objects moving around the world space, changing their colors, shapes or even themselves. This involves a feel for what will work in the world space. My choice of the range of numbers has a relationship to my perception of visual structure and esthetic qualities. Some combinations are likely to work. Maybe at an imbedded psychological level the Virtual Me am aware of those Cézanne paintings and Rembrandt sketches.

The effect of this approach is that there are hundreds or there could be billions of representations of an idea. As a practical matter, I do an overnight run of only several hundred pictures. I set the initial conditions and sit back and watch for the consequences. It is the Virtual Me who is playing artist. The next morning I sort through them to select the best series or the best picture. If I try to select the best picture, I often have difficulty making a decision. Sometimes I like all of them.

This creative process with the computer produces sequential changes and time and place is non-linear. The expressive qualities are being communicated through a new mode of presentation. We have hundreds or even thousands of viewpoints to represent radical transmutations. It is an impressive technology where one can move forward or backwards in time. Animation, which is basically linear in time, requires small changes at 30 frames per second. Indeed there are instances where the changes in animation can be radical and one does juxtapose place and time. Yet linear and gradual movement is the cornerstone of animation. Here we have a infinite art object which is continuously changing and expanding our appreciation of its meaning. This presentation with the shifting visual dynamics within a three dimensional world space offers an alternative mode of expression.