abstract cinema – generative systems – interactive visuals

Generative art is a relatively closed art form. It requires the viewer of such works to understand the nature of the program code. In this way the medium is not a transparent one.
A program can be as simple or as complex, this is of no importance when the viewer is not able to understand the underlaying principles.
The essence of generative arts is in most cases founded on nature, be it an implementation of mechanics, genetic algorithms or growing structures using Lindenmeyer systems or similar and other simulations like e.g. fluid dynamics. Hence one could conclude that generative arts is looking for ways to appeal to a sense of ‘reality’ in its audience through abstract visualizations: the appreciation of said natural processes are very accessible.
The question that arises considering all this is : does the underlaying system really matter?

One design principle in making 3d animation or stills is : does it look like what you want from the given camera-angle? If so, don’t bother if some polygons are sticking out in the back of your model, or if textures are not completely perfect. Perfection only goes as far as the perception of it.
If one would want to simulate e.g. gravity, is it important to simulate this in a natural way, consistent to our understanding of physics, or is it merely enough to create the illusion of gravity in the final ‘effect’ of the work?
The effect being the end-product and consequently that which an audience gets to see is the essence of the work, in the same way as exact physics do not seem to apply when someone gets shot, or explosion flattens an entire block in any given live-action movie.

Naturally, the idea behind generative art is to implement certain rules, algorithms in order to arrive at emergent behavior. Faking denies this in favor of effect, which purists in the field would deem all but done. I beg to differ as much of generative art is already dealing with this in certain ways e.g. the preference for programs which produce “nice” results visually. This combined with a certain (empty) design aesthetic in some cases denies the existence of interesting generative processes, which visual outcome might not be as easy on the eye, but are equally striking.

Initial result of a pathfinding way to move the camera.
A 3×3 submatrix is taken from matrix filled with random locations for the blocks. The highest value in the submatrix is used as the new camera position, the lowest as the new lookat point.
Using different settings for easing for both camera and lookat.