Conceptual Art Made Real: Why Procedural Content Generation is Impossible
Isaac Karth, Kate Compton · 2023
Procedural content generation is impossible: insofar as it is popularly understood as the generation of artifacts that can give us the same experience as if a human had crafted them by hand, it involves an intrinsic contradiction. If a thing has been generated once, it can be generated again. Kate Compton has introduced a term for this unending content: liquid art. Compton’s category of the “Bach faucet” describes the way that the endless supply of generativity destroys rarity. Conceptual art provides some examples of navigating this paradox. The PCG community is uniquely positioned to provide direction because of its existing understanding of the properties of generativity as an art form.