Recursivism

Definition

Recursivism is a conceptual framework for analyzing contemporary artistic practices, especially those involving AI, where the generative process itself reflexively modifies its own rules. It formalizes an aesthetic paradigm distinguishing simple iteration from genuine self-modification of creative principles.

At a glance

Executive summary

Recursivism is a new way to understand art, especially art made with AI, by focusing on how the creative process itself can change its own rules. It helps researchers analyze how art evolves over time, both historically and with modern AI tools, by categorizing different levels of self-modification.

TL;DR

Recursivism is a framework for analyzing art where the creative process itself learns and changes its own rules, particularly relevant for AI-generated art.

Key points

Generative process reflexively modifies its own rules based on its effects.
Provides a formal aesthetic paradigm for analyzing AI art and art history's dynamic evolution.
Used by art theorists, AI artists, and researchers in digital humanities.
Distinguishes from simple generative art by emphasizing self-modification of the creative rules, not just output variation.
Growing interest in formalizing aesthetic principles for AI-generated art and understanding computational creativity.

Use cases

Analyzing AI systems that evolve their own creative algorithms and artistic styles.

Interpreting historical art movements through a lens of self-modifying principles and evolving aesthetics.

Designing AI art generators that learn and adapt their creative rules in response to generated outputs.

Evaluating the 'creativity' of AI by its capacity for meta-recursive self-modification of artistic processes.