CAS is delighted to welcome back the artist and composer Peter Beyls, who has been working with generative software since the 1970s. He is currently research professor at CITAR, UC Porto and visiting professor of Media Art at UC Ghent.

Monday 16th Feb 6:30pm at the British Computer Society, London Office, 5 Southampton St, London WC2E 7HA

The talk suggests an idiosyncratic perspective to identify and contextualize cognitive principles underpinning algorithmic art starting from a critical analysis of my intimate, longtime engagement with software as art.

We develop a conceptual framework for understanding the cognitive foundations of algorithmic art and software as private belief system. Cognitive principles seem to underpin writing software on aesthetic grounds, including close creative partnership with machines, improvisation and risk taking, software as creative introspection, the merging of intellect and intuition and balancing the power of knowledge versus behavior.

From this background, we address a significant variety of computational models and study their identity, complexity and aesthetic potential. Furthermore, one must map digital artifacts back into the analog world so people can experience them with their bodies. This, in turn, raises questions of tangibility and awareness.