generation/mutation

The new media art project, generation/mutation, began as an experiment in crowdsourcing creative work online. The original version of generation/mutation was launched on DIGITALSOULS.COM in March of 1998 with a simple call to artists. The call consisted of a few hand-coded HTML pages: a project description, a downloadable 41 Kb JPEG image file, and three instructions.

Participating artists were asked to

download the project’s seed image
alter the image any way they like
email the result back to be shown in an online exhibition.

Participation in the project was open to everyone and every contribution—provided it met a few simple technical requirements—was guaranteed a place in the planned online exhibition.

Death Valley Junction. 1982 photograph by H-Ray Heine, bw, Nikon F2, 24mm. Seed image for generation/mutation

No jury, no curator, no censorship. The aim was to trigger a free and open-ended collaboration that would generate a series of contributions by artists from around the world, using the just emerging Internet as the only means of communication and exchange.

The resulting online exhibition was seen by more than 2,5 million visitors during its first three years online!

Today, almost a quarter of a century later, the synergy of the contributions continues to amaze the viewer. Here are the contributions of the original online exhibition.

generation/mutation 1.1
hray-scape
Jeremy Turner
imageforalteration
Kelly Darke
imageforalteration
Jonathan Prince
imageforalteration
H-Ray Heine
imageforalteration
Martin Selman
imageforalteration
jaxun
imageforalteration
Zye Zaen
imageforalteration
Donald Trimble
imageforalteration
H-Ray Heine
imageforalteration
Scott Lickstein
imageforalteration
Martin Pribble

Ted Bragg
Elisha Sarti
dv01_altered
Martin Pribble
imageforalteration
Kelly Darke
generation/mutation 1.2

generation/mutation 1.2

Miquel Santos | Jean Beil | Jay Heitman | Jon Johnson | Mary
Lynch | Ian Cartwright | Creepy | Ron George | Daniel C. Boyer
Corey H Eiseman | Carl Patzel | Tara Camacho | Polina | H-Ray
Heine Gweedo | Michael MacKenzie | Oliver Loveday | Alex
McLean | E_B_A | Emily Smith | Rob Forsyth | Joe Wakefield
Dmitry Misalin | Joe Keenan | Phil Smith | Stephanie Rigsby | Faith
Buck | Casey Keeler | Tom R. Chambers | Udo Hanten
M.G. Wood | Martin Pribble | Keith P. Chevalier | M. Marshall
Kakupacal

 

August 2001

 

Works and gift items available in our DIGITALSOULS.COM Store

 

 

We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.

Bob Ross

 

Udo Hanten: fish-waiting4water
Udo Hanten: fish-waiting4water
Kakupacal: untitled
Kakupacal: untitled
Anonymous: Bolan
Anonymous: Bolan
Udo Hanten: Fishcar
Udo Hanten: Fishcar
Anonymous: untitled
Anonymous: untitled
Anonymous: untitled
Anonymous: untitled
Kakupacal: untitled
Kakupacal: untitled
Anonymous: untitled
Anonymous: untitled
M Marshall: the last yardsale
M Marshall: the last yardsale
Keith P Chevalier: i remember
Keith P Chevalier: i remember
M.G. Wood: none
M.G. Wood: none
Martin Pribble: The Mercy Seat
Martin Pribble: The Mercy Seat
Udo Hanten: boy Zone
Udo Hanten: boy Zone
Tom R. Chambers: Alteration dv01a
Tom R. Chambers: Alteration dv01a
Casey Keeler: Ergonomicon’s Response to Infinity
Casey Keeler: Ergonomicon’s Response to Infinity
Joe Keenan: Generific
Joe Keenan: Generific
Stephanie Rigsby: mutation
Stephanie Rigsby: mutation
Phil Smith: Untitled
Phil Smith: Untitled
« of 3 »

Chapter 1 - Crowds

Based on the idea of crowdsourcing creative work online, years before the expression “crowdsourcing” was coined, generation/mutation received contributions from a diverse group of international new media artists. During its first two years, the project’s online exhibition attracted more than 2.5 million visitors and has remained one of the most iconic collaborative new media artworks online.

Launched on digitalsouls.com in the early days of the Internet, before Google or Facebook or iPhones, generation/mutation explores the new possibilities of collaborative art production and distribution afforded by the evolution of digital technologies.

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generation/mutation 2.0

The evolution of web-based technologies created the foundations for a second and third mutation of the project. The second mutation of the project, generation/mutation 2.0, presents a collection of machine-made contributions—images found on Google’s Street View and Google Earth services. The Google-made images were taken at same location that is seen in the original seed image and present a Street View interpretation of the same place.

generation/mutation 2.1
dvj_streetview_02_1080
google-made 200804
dvj_streetview_05_1080
google-made 200805
dvj_streetview_01a_1080
google-made 200803
dvj_streetview_01b_1080
google-made 200802
dvj_streetview_03_1080
google-made 200801

generation/mutation 3.0

Finally, the third mutation of the project presents images that are made by AI—generated by the application of neural style transfer models that became accessible as early as 2018. The images presented in the third mutation return to the original seed image but they now render the original image based on the visual “style” detected in a second image, for example, an image of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh or Auguste Renoir or Mark Rothko.

generation/mutation 3.0 – nst dv01 – rothko
generation/mutation 3.1
dv01-vangogh-starry-night-29
Van Gogh DV01 NST
dv01-monet-28
Monet DV01 NST
dv01-seurat-28
Seurat DV01 NST
dv01-great-wave-40
Hokusai DV01 NST
dv01-kandinsky-50
Kandinsky DV01 NST
dv01-rothko-38
Rothko DV01 NST

As a collective work of art, generation/mutation defies traditional assumptions of authorship. It consists of many individual contributions, but it is not the work of a single author or artist. It is a synthesis of voices and expressions that relate to each other and create a presentation that is simultaneously unified and polymorphous.

generation/mutation challenges the traditional roles of artist, artwork and spectator, and explores the shift from a world that is grounded in a classic account of reality to the new, digital representation of the real, the intersection of the hyper-real and the virtual.

The entire collection of contributions to the project with notes on each mutation of the project is available in H-Ray Heine’s new book generation/mutation: from crowdsourced to ai-sourced new media art. A selection of museum quality Giclee prints are available exclusively on the DIGITALSOULS.COM Shop.


HTML archive of the original call to artists and exhibition 1998-2000

generation/mutation opening screen

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