Creative coding: using software to erase archaic disciplinary lines

At some point in human thought, a line was drawn: between art and science, intuition and logic, emotion and reason.

This division has never sat well with me.

For one, it’s a bit of a false dichotomy. Ask a dedicated film director about what they do, and they will regale you with technical details about production, vision, and editing.

Ask a scientist about what they do, and they will speak to you in prose.

Like I’ve written in [this post] about the advent of dissolving disciplinary thinking, the division between art and science is likewise beginning to vanish. Nowhere is that more clear than in the amazing field of creative code.

Creative code takes an area of thought — computer science — that inherently presents itself as a technical discipline, and transforms it into the very thing that we consider the antithesis of that: art.

What does it mean that generative art and art generated by software is becoming so welcomed into our world?

Opinions may vary. I think it means that these archaic lines between art and science are disappearing.

And what a relief — we are doing ourselves a disservice to imagine that math isn’t an art, that we can’t use technology to create exciting and revolutionary new forms of creative expression.

To say that these two modes — art and science — don’t involve each other is to say that people are essentially fractured. Although we might feel that way when we’re leveling with the degree to which public opinion considers them separate, at our best, we are anything but.

Creative code is one discipline among many that offers an exciting unification between these two perennially-at-odds modes of thought, and it’s worth noting.