Artist 6

John F. Simon, Jr. uses computer programming and software code as a medium to explore the possibilities of visual expression and, actually it ends up being a kind of storytelling. The image to the right is taken from his "A Life" project.  The six orbs are constantly changing, fed by the program he created, following a certain progression that "models the emergent, recombinant processes of living evolutionary systems."  I thought it was really cool how he doesn't really go into it with a solid conception of what he's going to create, but instead just just a general idea of direction.  And, he says, more often than not, he, or the code, does something unexpected, and this too is incorporated into the finished code.  In my experience with art, especially in the musical vein, I have had this happen many times - where I've been working on song, but then may just begin jamming to the general tune that I already had, and all of a sudden I had three really cool parts to the song, and needed to figure out some way to incorporate them into the finished thing.  I think there is a certain freedom in approaching art like that, not to have a rigid conception of what was going to be, but letting the art come out of itself, and maybe changing some things eventually - I find that to be more honest than constraining oneself.