Manifesto: Generative Conceptual Art - Redefining Artistic Norms
Generative Conceptual Art /Gen-Conceptualism/ represents a synthesis of conceptual art and generative art, grounded in: elevating the generative system to a conceptual construct and deploying code as articulation, not illustration. This shift prioritizes the enacted idea over aesthetics and transforms authorship into a dynamic collaboration involving the viewer.
by m5 (@m5alien)
Manifesto
Code is enacted thought.
Concept drives the generative engine.
This is the foundation of Generative Conceptual Art /Gen-Conceptualism/ — an art form fusing conceptual rigor with its generative kernel.
Gen-Conceptualism rejects the algorithm as merely a tool for aesthetics. Forget the image factory. The focus shifts decisively from surface beauty to the clarity and precision of the core conceptual question. It values the idea enacted, not the artifact produced.
Here, the generative system is not a means to an end; it is the conceptual construct. Code is not illustration; it is articulation. The artist builds systems as philosophical inquiries, embedding the driving questions within their logic.
Authorship dissolves into a dynamic interplay. The artist designs the context, the philosophical framework. The generative system executes, orchestrates, introduces chance. The viewer activates, embodies, often becoming indistinguishable from the artwork itself.
In Gen-Conceptualism, the artwork frequently exists only in the moment of encounter. It resides not in the seen, but in the seeing. Presence creates. Observation becomes creation. The artwork is not object, but event; not static image, but enacted experience.
See code as concept.
See system as philosophy.
This is Gen-Conceptualism.
The Architecture of Gen-Conceptualism
Generative Conceptual Art redefines the relationship between idea and artwork through the medium of generative systems. As a metamodern movement, it shifts emphasis from aesthetics or materiality to the purity, precision, and vitality of ideas themselves, while transforming the notion of authorship through the dynamic collaboration of artist, algorithm, and viewer.
Rather than offering static representation, gen-conceptual artworks establish a living connection between creation and observation. They do not merely depict; they activate. They question the very structure of artistic norms, inviting the viewer not to contemplate the visual form, but to engage directly with the idea’s unfolding essence.
In this framework, the artist becomes closer to a screenwriter and director — architecting systems, designing dramaturgies, scripting potentialities. The algorithm operates as a mechanism of predictable unpredictability, generating outcomes that neither artist nor collector can fully anticipate. Even when rooted in a purely conceptual core, the artist encodes parameters within the system, shaping an emergent uniqueness with every output.
Generative Conceptual Art often demands the viewer’s participation: without their engagement, the work remains latent, unmanifested. The artist lays the philosophical foundation. The algorithm orchestrates, shaping both the uniqueness of each piece and the evolution of the whole collection. The viewer activates the work, becoming the final node in a perpetually shifting, living dialogue that constitutes the art itself.
Manifestations
LOOK. AT. YOURSELF.
Is a long-form, life-timed generative artwork where each edition is a black screen — one that doesn’t depict, but reflects. The core concept: the viewer becomes the artwork. It’s not about observing, but becoming — the reflection activates the artistic image. Expecting to see art, the viewer instead encounters themself as the art. Their reflection on the black screen is the artistic image.
The artwork breathes only under observation. Each gaze brings it to life. The screen of a personal device, a gallery display, or a museum installation acts as the medium, creating the work through reflection. Without presence, there is only darkness; with a gaze, a living image emerges.
“Look. at. yourself. You are the central figure of the work of art!” — @m5alien.
This dynamic establishes a unique co-authorship. The artist creates the technological and conceptual context; the viewer, through interaction with the screen, becomes the artwork. Passive observation transforms into active co-creation. This interplay invites questioning of traditional notions regarding authorship and self-perception.
Deployed on the fx(hash) platform, the LOOK. AT. YOURSELF. project instantiates unique editions upon minting, each defined by a distinct combination of parameters determined by an algorithm following its internal dramaturgy. Variables such as duration, aspect ratio, orientation, and frame rate form the structural skeleton of every edition. At the heart of the piece lies the ‘epistle’ — a textual node linking artist, observer, and system (e.g., “Contemplate yourself,” “The artist is inside you. You are inside the artwork…”). Selected by chance during generation, the epistle plays a significant role in shaping the edition’s configuration and conceptual tenor within the shared framework.
Technically, a complete breakdown of parameters and their distribution by rarity appears in the Traits section of each edition post-minting.
The project adheres to a strict temporal rhythm: life-timed unfolding. It evolves alongside the artist’s life. Each year lived by the artist unlocks one new edition available for minting. The number of unlocked works always equals the artist’s age, while potential future editions remain reserved (the artist’s reserve). This structure, anchored on the blockchain, directly ties the project’s duration and total size to the artist’s lifespan. Consequently, nobody knows how many pieces will ultimately exist 🕵️♂️
LOOK. AT. YOURSELF. collapses the distance. Viewer becomes artwork. Artwork becomes viewer. The presence creates. The art is not what you see — the art is that you see.
⇨ https://www.fxhash.xyz/generative/22533 ⇦
Artist’s Invisible Presence
Artist’s Invisible Presence frames absence as presence through a generative audio system. Each edition contains no visual — only emptiness of the canvas and the invisible presence of the artist.
How to experience the presence?
⇩Use your headphones!⇩
The generative algorithm constructs specific dramaturgy for each piece through unique binaural audio compositions, orchestrating the sounds of an artist’s physical presence (heartbeat, breath, footsteps) with precise spatial positioning. The parameters defining each composition — aspect ratio, orientation, frequency and duration of sounds, stereo panning — become the conceptual framework (documented in the Traits section).
The work exists primarily in the moment of encounter between listener and audio space. Without the viewer’s engagement, the artist’s presence remains latent, unmanifested. With engagement, the viewer’s imagination completes the circuit, transforming absence into presence.
The collection enacts the artist’s original mechanism for unfolding a collection, first introduced in LOOK. AT. YOURSELF.: the number of editions eligible for minting corresponds to the artist’s age, with each new year unlocking a new available work — thus embedding the artist’s life and passage of time directly into the evolving architecture of the collection.
Pure Art
“Less is more.” — Mies van der Rohe.
Pure Art, a long-form generative collection, directly enacts the principles of Gen-Conceptualism, focusing solely on generative form devoid of applied aesthetics.
Limited to 105 editions, the collection presents unique variations of the white canvas. An algorithm dictates only the shape, assigning a distinct “genome” of parameters (size, duration, depth, orientation, aspect ratio) to each piece. In this work, the form itself, stripped bare, is the concept.
Code executes.
The concept evolves.
Engage with further works from the Gen-Conceptualism movement: ⇨ here ⇦.
