Hofstadter’s Seek Whence program extrapolates data from number sequences in an attempt to seek out rules for describing them. This is the essence of the program; to find patterns and other sequences from an initial given string of integers. However, he notes that there can be many different ways of looking at these patterns and it is often the the most unique perspectives which are aesthetically pleasing to us. My first post covered an example of looking at the same sequence from two differing perspectives. Art, in a similar fashion, can often be derived the same way, by taking creative licenses, avoiding the obvious, and breaking the rules we were taught to follow.

Hofstadter explains this specifically, “Often, what makes a piece of art appealing is precisely the fact that it violates some normal, easy way of doing things” (Hofstadter, 1995). For example, consider the work of Jackson Pollock. He is known for “action” or splatter painting. His art as an expression is meant to recreate the event that took place when a piece was painted, and was a major derivation of the norm. Instead of following the typical rules that art should be a portrayal of real life objects or mimic it in some way, he created his splatter paintings as a by-product of the actual event that took place to create them. While seemingly random, the pieces are meant to convey the moments during their conception. While machines may be able to replicate the apparent randomness of such artwork, they would find it difficult to judge it based on its aesthetics, and impossible to replicate the entirely human process under which they were created.

[Lavender Mist by Jackson Pollock]

As Hofstadter points out, one of the more difficult concepts for artificial intelligence to capture is a sense of aesthetics and beauty. Hofstadter tried hard to create a machine which could emulate this. A machine which could take a concept and toy with it, but also preserve a sense of it its original being. A machine which could take care in noticing, as Hofstadter calls it, naturalness vs forcedness, or elegance vs clunkiness. These are all key elements in forming any kind of creative art, whether it be musical composition, product design, writing, or painting, and also play a major role in emotional intelligence and general problem solving. Hofstadter, unfortunately, was mostly unsuccessful in his endeavor. The question then is,will it ever be possible for us to recreate this sense of intuition with the current form of computing we have today, or, do we have to wait for some new technology before we can truly capture the intuitiveness of the human mind in a machine?

-James