Move Fast and Break Things: Control, Progress and the Black Box
· talk
Alex May joined James Bloom for a Computer Arts Society debate on artistic agency, control, and black-box creativity.
Alex May joined James Bloom at the Computer Arts Society for Move Fast and Break Things: Control, Progress and the Black Box on Wednesday 15 April 2026 at 6pm.
Hosted at BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT in Moorgate and also available on Zoom, the event was moderated by Bronac Ferran and framed as a live debate rather than a standard artist talk. The discussion focused on what artistic agency looks like in a moment shaped by automated systems, opaque tools, and increasingly seamless creative interfaces.
The event set up a productive tension between two approaches. James Bloom described a practice that pushes systems towards failure in order to expose their assumptions and weaknesses, while Alex May discussed hand-coding his own algorithms to retain close control over memory, time, and visual form. The conversation made clear how differently artists can approach machine systems while still asking related questions about responsibility, authorship, and creative constraint.
Alex May’s contribution drew on his long-running practice across algorithmic photography, video sculpture, robotics, photogrammetry, projection mapping, generative systems, and biologically informed media. Set against Bloom’s more antagonistic approach to networked and code-based art, the evening became a sharp discussion about control, progress, and the politics of black-box creativity.
Further event information remains available via the Computer Arts Society event page.
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