The Aesthetics of Generative Code

Aesthetics, in general usage, lays an emphasis on subjective sense perception associated with the
broad field of art and human creativity. Drawing particularly on Jonathan Rée’s "I See a Voice: A
Philosophical History (1999)", this paper suggests that it might be useful to revisit the troubled
relationship between art and aesthetics for the purpose of discussing the value of generative code.
Our argument is that, like poetry, the aesthetic value of code lies in its execution, not simply its
written form. However, to appreciate generative code fully we need to ‘sense’ the code to fully
grasp what it is we are experiencing and to build an understanding of the code’s actions.

To separate the code and the resultant actions would simply limit the aesthetic experience, and
ultimately limit the study of these forms - as a form of criticism - and what in this context might
better be called a ‘poetics’ of generative code.