Talk:Generative art

March 2012 Improvements

Hi all. Tonight I reorganized this article in a way that is much more extensible. Now it is very clear where to add examples, where to add methods, and where to add art theory discussion. I only deleted two things. (1) Conway's game of life because it isn't art let alone generative art...however there is cellular automata based art out there...I mention it as a technique...others may want to add specific examples. (2) Anne Wilson does not, so far as I can tell, create generative art at all. The only reference I could find was a single use of the use of the word "generative" in a different context. However, please feel free to make a footnoted entry for her if you can find info otherwise.

Other than this I also improved the initial definition, alphabetized the references, added a few more citations, reworded and rewrote some text that meant well but had to be said better, and added a significant section on generative art theory. I know I cite my own work there, but it really is the most widely cited theory work, and I did try to also reference Boden's paper which takes a different but very useful approach. Any additional theory references would obviously be welcome, but they should cite published work not just speculation shot from the hip.

At this point I'm committed to making incremental improvements on a regular basis. I sure hope others will as well. More citations for unsupported text and more examples of art and artists would be great! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philip Galanter (talk • contribs) 04:18, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Philip Galanter (talk) 04:19, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

August 2012 Discussion

I note that after mentioning the March 2012 improvements on the generative art discussion list a few possibly contentious edits have been made. A few notes in that regard. Of course by design there is no single authority (short of Wikipedia staff) when it comes to wiki entries, but I think the following suggestions are consistent with current practice:

• If you are removing content please comment in the "Edit summary" why that is appropriate.

• If you are adding content that makes an assertion please substantiate it with an academic-like citation in what is now labeled as the "Footnotes" section.

• When adding citations be sure to understand and use the automated function for doing so. See other parts of the wiki article for examples as to how to do this.

• I see a couple references to Celestino Soddu's writing as well as one for the Matt Pearson book were deleted. I'm tempted to simply add them in again but please comment here as to why that wouldn't be appropriate if you feel strongly about it.

• I've now looked at a number of other articles with regard to the ordering of sections (is history at the beginning or the end?) and citations (are they notes? Footnotes? Additional reading? etc.) I've found significant variation among articles.

• Given that, I'd like to reorganize this article to put all such entries into 3 sections: "Footnotes" for parenthetical remarks not wanted in the main text "References" for citations of sources supporting statements in the main text and "Additional Reading" for other related media not tied to any particular statement in the text but very relevant to generative art.

Again, any other ideas or strong disagreements with this?

I'm posting this both here and on the generative art mailing list with the hope that we can anticipate consensus edits rather than sequential edits that battle back and forth.

thanks, Phil — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philip Galanter (talk • contribs) 06:08, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Talk archive

I've taken the liberty of rearranging the talk so most recent discussions are at the bottom, as I believe is customary. I've also archived older discussion, although was unsure how much to archive.. There is still some relevant stuff in there, no objections if anyone moves some of it back. Yaxu (talk) 23:17, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The current sense of the term "generative art"

Back to this wikipedia article - I've tried to come up with wording that Celestino and his wife might let pass:

"A particular sense of the term "Generative Art" was established in an academic context by Celestino Soddu and Enrica Colabella, in the proceedings of the First International Generative Art conference in 1998, at Politecnico di Milano University, Italy. The proceedings were published in 1999 under the title "Generative Art" by Dedalo in Rome 1999."

But he insists on this version, which claims that they have defined the term, despite all that came before, including that already documented in the article:

"The current sense of the term "Generative Art" was established the first time by Celestino Soddu and Enrica Colabella, in the proceedings of the First International Generative Art conference in 1998, at Politecnico di Milano University, Italy. The proceedings were published in 1999 under the title "Generative Art" by Dedalo in Rome 1999."

To me, this strange assertion renders the section nonsensical. However rather than enter a pointless edit war with the subject, I give up on this paragraph for now -- contributions from a neutral point of view would be much appreciated.

Yaxu (talk) 23:22, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Live coding and autonomy

I've added a reference to my own (albeit peer reviewed) work under live coding. I thought it important to clarify a point, which affirms generative art's focus on autonomy and differentiates it from live coding in this respect. Happy for others to find a more appropriate reference for this.. Or to just remove the section on live coding if justified here.

Yaxu (talk) 08:30, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Tags removed

There is room for improvement, but this article has much improved lately in my opinion, so I have moved the original research one to the one section which I think it still applies to (which Philip Galanter is collecting references for), and removed the other one completely. If anyone puts the tags back, please be specific about the sections that are in particularly need of attention.

Yaxu (talk) 08:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Recent edits by Celestino Soddu impugned by Alex McLean

In my opinion these edits are in violation of WP:COI (see WP:PSCOI).

As you have said, if there are multiple views established in the literature, we should try to represent them all, not try to arrive at a single point of view. We document and differentiate them all.

However you have just made this edit:

In the current sense, the term "Generative Art" was established the first time 
by Celestino Soddu and Enrica Colabella, in the proceedings of the First 
International Generative Art conference in 1998, at Politecnico di Milano 
University, Italy.

This statement asserts that there is a single current sense, while you have just clearly said that there is not.

I will edit the article accordingly.

Furthermore you say in the edit comment "And it's not true that all people converge in the definition that you have written. Put your definition and other people will write his own definition. GA is open"

This is not my definition, but that of Boden and Edmonds, both highly respected scholars, who I believe have written the only in-depth history of generative art. I do not necessarily agree with the statement, I am just trying to help write an article that reflects the position in the literature.

By the way you have not said in the article what your definition of the term is. I think it would be helpful if you did so.

Yaxu (talk) 18:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

I have restored the conflict of interest tag to the content contributed by Celestino Soddu. His only contribution to the article is to make baseless claims about himself and his wife, which do not sit with well referenced content in the rest of the section.

This is the only potential conflict of interest violation in my opinion. An anonymous editor with an IP which geocodes near Milan, applied it to the theory section, but I see no problem there, for example Philip has been very open to discussion.

Problems I see are:

• Celestino keeps removing arguments from Boden and Edmonds, who are well established experts in this field.
• He persists in claiming to have established the current sense of the term "generative art" without justification
• He does not actually say what this sense is

I'm finding it extremely difficult to find common ground. He even deletes the word "arguably" from his claims after Philip Galanter introduced it.

Yaxu (talk) 22:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Recent edits by Alex McLean

First of all, you refer to my wife and not to Enrica Colabella, wellknown researcher in Generative Art. This says to everybody about how works your "critical" position and your person.

I tried to improve the Generative Art page but everything I wrote you always delete it.

This is your integralist, not cultural position. And surely not generative!.

Celestino Soddu

Apologies for getting that fact wrong. Please do continue to improve the page with well reference content, but acknowledge any conflict of interest, and step back where necessary to allow a neutral point of view to be established.

Yaxu (talk) 13:03, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The article now states that your conference was the first venue for cross-disciplinary research into generative art. You should certainly be proud of this, I don't think anyone would disagree, and I don't think much more needs to be said.

I do not think you claim about establishing the "current sense" of the term is supportable by any reference. You might reasonably argue that Philip's "What is generative art?" paper at your conference established the predominant sense (in 2003 - not 1998), but as it says in the introduction to the paper, this sense was established through community engagement in at least one other venue.

Yaxu (talk) 13:10, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Also regarding integralism - once more, the quote in the article about converging on a shared meaning of the term is not mine. It is the position of Boden and Edmonds, I do not necessarily agree, I am just trying to help write a useful, neutral wikipedia article that reflects the literature on the topic.

Yaxu (talk) 13:23, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

But, Alex-Yaxu, do you have nothing better to do that going ahead with this boring discussion, useless claims and demonstrations of envy? I am in Sardinia (and not in Milan as you suppose, sorry) and I prefer stay on the beach! Celestino — Preceding unsigned comment added by Celestinosoddu (talk • contribs) 19:15, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about you being in Milan, but otherwise a fair point. I won't waste my time trying to engage with you any more. Yaxu (talk) 20:43, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Additional reading

The article is getting fairly long now, with a good number of references. From a quick look, the entries on the "additional reading" list are on the whole already in the main references list, or are not directly relevant. Should we just delete the additional reading list? Is it worth saving any by referencing them in the text first?

Yaxu (talk) 18:59, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I think an additional reading section is worth having even if some of it duplicates references. Citations will be used by some to provide additional reading, but their primarily function is to lend authority to a statement in the article. The additional reading list should include items that expand on the topic in a way typical readers of the article are likely to find useful.

I'd say that if something in the additional reading list is also a reference, but it isn't either a "classic" article in the field, an introductory or overview book or article, or an introductory book or overview article on a significant subtopic (e.g. the Algorithmic Beauty of Plants regarding L-systems), then it should probably just be shown as a reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.91.10.94 (talk) 19:21, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Another apparent CoI edit

I thought we'd finally got to a wording that Celestino and I could agree on, until this edit this afternoon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Generative_art&diff=509800020&oldid=509573761

This edit goes as far as modifying a direct quote from Margaret Boden and Ernest Edmonds so that it agrees with Celestino's point of view. According to the IP address, the edit was done by someone near Milan, if anyone knows who it was, I hope that they will educate them on academic malpractice.

Yaxu (talk) 20:18, 29 August 2012 (UTC)