Generative Art over the Years

Re:Generative Art over the Years by zamadatix on Friday April 10, 2026 @11:57AM (#47720047)

I'm not sure I manage to follow accurately. If you don't save the art you make then it's gone, generative or not. If you do save the output in some way (either by saving the output itself or saving the full information needed to regenerate the output) what is special about doing so on the blockchain vs anywhere else beyond the aforementioned proof of ownership?

One is of course allowed to care about proof of ownership and the method used to do so if they like :). I just didn't follow the response in context of the question of how it's different from doing the same without the blockchain otherwise.

Unrelated: Kickass you're the Monokai author - I still use that today! Have you ever posted a retrospective about Monokai?

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by monokai_nl on Friday April 10, 2026 @12:47PM (#47720749)

A generative system can produce an infinity of outputs. An art platform combined with a blockchain allows you to store a finite number of outputs from the same system definitively without knowing upfront what the outputs would look like. This forces you to think carefully about your system: it should produce interesting works with each iteration. Some people call this long form generative art.

Regarding Monokai, I’ve written some history about it here: https://monokai.pro/history :)

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by sdenton4 on Friday April 10, 2026 @05:40PM (#47723990)

Yah, I think the question really comes down to: what's so special about a block chain vs any other public record or database?

For example, it's just as easy - and more accessible - to put the code and example configurations with output in a github repository.

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by monokai_nl on Saturday April 11, 2026 @12:13AM (#47727321)

The special thing is that it’s decentralized. I know this discussion will not resolve and I’m not a blockchain zealot. I do think it’s an elegant decentralized storage system for algorithmic art where you make outputs definitive and collectible after initiating a run.

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by zamadatix on Sunday April 12, 2026 @04:48PM (#47744305)

I think that's more than fair - "I like blockchain for decentralized proof of ownership more than other methods for the same." is as fine a preference as any other, of course.

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by zamadatix on Sunday April 12, 2026 @04:49PM (#47744311)

Thanks for the history page :).

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by crooked-v on Friday April 10, 2026 @10:27PM (#47726683)

Of course, "proof of ownership" with generative art isn't, because pure generative art is ineligible for copyright protection (https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-de...).

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by monokai_nl on Saturday April 11, 2026 @12:06AM (#47727287)

You’re conflating AI art with algorithmic art. This is the reason why I wrote the article.

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by t0bia_s on Saturday April 11, 2026 @02:59AM (#47728193)

You mean images? Art cannot by generated by definition.

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Re:Generative Art over the Years by zamadatix on Sunday April 12, 2026 @04:31PM (#47744142)

This seems, either intentionally or unintentionally, an extremely narrow view of art.

E.g. are the artists who worked on Flow (2024) no longer artists because the resulting images are generated rather than drawn? Most people would disagree, and hold/put forth a very different definition as a result, given even they were already credited as the artists on the piece before I asked the question.

Even the arguments in the courts about AI, which is a very different kind of "generated" output, stuck to showing the outputs can't be copyrighted rather than trying to argue whether the outputs were still art as the problem.

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