Artist Statement

UNAMERICAN UNFAMOUS – Brooklyn is a generative artwork. It combines digital and non-digital raw materials: custom code versus analog photographs and segments of hand-painted movie film, remixing live in a pulsing, generative system.

A wider part of that system’s making process was the seeking of im- ages from the Brooklyn and Kingsborough community, in a year-long Call for Submissions. This was regarded as part of the generative system that creat- ed the artwork, so the work is by the artist and Brooklyn itself.

The artwork’s chief compositional strategy is rhythm: in space (motif), and time (beat). It has a continuous, heart-like, pulse, its rhythms emanating from a system of algorithmic ‘players’ that complete the artwork in a format of composed chance. Their interactive play is like a group of improvising mu- sicians, all playing from a song sheet’s instructions –– for example, those controlling melody, tempo, or harmony –– but in this case also following im- provisational guidelines. They respond to each other, in the moment, while the viewer watches the work complete itself.

Clive Holden
Toronto, Canada
2024

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