Art That Makes Itself - Symposium
· talk
Alex May spoke at Watermans as part of the Art That Makes Itself symposium, a discussion on generative art, digital image-making, and the challenges of curating and conserving digital work.
Alex May took part in Art That Makes Itself - Symposium at Watermans Arts Centre on 16 May 2015, contributing to a wider discussion on generative art, digital image-making, and the practical realities of sustaining digital culture across time. The event brought together artists, curators, writers, and researchers from different generations of digital practice, including Frieder Nake, Margaret Boden, Douglas Dodds, Ernest Edmonds, and Paul and Daniel Brown.
The symposium focused on a problem that runs through much of May’s work: digital art is not only made differently, it also has to be exhibited, interpreted, and conserved differently. Works built through code, software, systems, and time-based behaviours do not fit comfortably within older models of display or collection, and that makes questions of maintenance and preservation central rather than secondary.
For May, this placed his own practice in a broader historical context. By joining a conversation that spanned early computer art through to contemporary generative and digital installation work, he was able to frame current artistic questions around memory, technical fragility, and cultural continuity as part of a longer trajectory rather than a temporary novelty.