Intellectual process, visceral result: human agency and the production of artworks via automated technology

Abstract

Automated technology that produces art presents specific issues for interpretation: where should the artwork be situated — in the objects the machine produces, the machine itself, or the design for the machine? Central to this question is the issue of human agency in the creation of art. This paper examines these issues in relation to the implications of Sol LeWitt's ‘Sentences on Conceptual Art’, and frames the question of human agency in relation to the work of contemporary artist Roxy Paine, and the historical artists Mary Hallock-Greenewalt and Richard M. Craig who created autonomous systems for making visual music. These artists’ work involves automated technology that functions without their intervention. These works suggest a framework that recognizes the artist's role as the designer of art, rather than as necessarily the fabricator of those works.