Electric Sheep

I don't feel that I will suddenly change the way I make art, just because I am using digital media. Digital art can be as direct as you want it to be. It can be the direct result of recording a raw performance or it can be extremely mediated. A human can program a computer to generate an algorithm based painting or sound piece and create a constant stream of innovation. In between the extremes there is as much scope for creative endeavour as in any field of traditional art. When an artwork is digital it does not mean that the computer is making the decisions.

I am amazed at the beauty of a lot of computer generated images. To me, mathematically based images produced by computers can equal the beauty of the natural environment, but art is not just a means to create beauty. If I was really trying to reproduce nature with my art I would find it frustrating and depressing, but as I am using art as a means of understanding, educating, mediating and expressing my feelings, creating artworks makes me feel a sense of freedom and power.

I have long been interested in Fractal Images and am aware that the mathematician, Mandelbrot, based his fractal theory on the study of coastlines. Fractal art is, like much photography, often classifiable as art only because of simple aesthetic choices that humans have made. An example of this is the "Electric Sheep Project," the free software for screensavers which is actually an evolutionary computer art program through the choices made by the software users.
http://www.electricsheep.org/