1% de desorden (Homenaje a Vera Molnár)

Generative artwork inspired by computer art pioneers. It explores the tension between the perfect grid and entropy through a modular 25-cell structure with random variations.

Technical, aesthetic, and conceptual development

Technical: Generated on a 512x512 pixel canvas using an 8-bit grayscale color depth. Structurally, nested for loops were used to create a 5x5 grid, with an inner loop drawing 12 concentric squares inside each cell. The translate() function was used to position the origin at the center of each module, isolating transformations with push() and pop(). Algorithmic “error” was implemented with an if conditional and random(), applying rotations and offsets with a 15% probability.

Aesthetic: Follows the line of Vera Molnár’s concrete and algorithmic art, specifically her 1976 series. The minimalist aesthetic seeks to evoke the mechanical drawings of early plotters, where “error” is not a human mistake but a system decision.

Conceptual: Grounded in Philip Galanter’s theory defining generative art as an autonomous system. The author does not draw every line, but establishes rules for a self-organizing process. It connects with Inke Arns’ concept of performative code: the artwork is not a static result, but the real-time execution of the algorithm, where what is “said” in the code matches what is “done” on screen.

Bibliography

• ARNS, Inke. (2005). “Code as performative speech act”. Barcelona: Artnodes Journal.
• GALANTER, Philip. (2011). “Shot by both sides: Art-science and the war between science and humanities”. Barcelona: Artnodes Journal.

Brief resume

About the artist (Vera Molnár): Vera Molnár (1924–2023) was a Hungarian pioneer in computer art who developed the “machine imaginaire” method before having access to real hardware.

About the student: Oleg Poliakov is a Multimedia Arts student at Universidad Nacional de las Artes (UNA).