Crafting the Computational: Artistic Production, Generative Systems, and Digital Fabrication

Digital artists use generative systems for negotiating agency and control with autonomous processes that display emergent and self-organizing behavior. Practitioners have started using these systems in material fabrication for rich sensory opportunities; however, translating digital generative designs into the physical involves significant knowledge of programming, complex workflows, physical constraints, and material properties. I aim to develop computational systems bridging generative art methods with digital fabrication techniques to support artistic practices. I seek to develop digital generative workflows that account for the complexities of real-world materials through collaborations with professional practitioners. My thesis contributes practice-based research into evolutionary algorithms for real-time digital form generation, a manual-computational workflow for artistic production that moves between digital and material pipelines, and a collaborative practice-driven software development methodology for digital fabrication. These contributions inform my next project aiming to bridge the gap between digital and physical workflows, bringing computational generative design closer to material fabrication.