Fragmentation & Generative AI: The Algorhythmic Turn
The fragmented and re-assembled images of Romare Bearden and its closest relative — the African-American quilt — are formal, aesthetic manifestations of the inherently conflicting circumstances out of which the African-American was born. — Sheryl Tucker de Vazquez
Fragmentation refers to the process or state of breaking or being broken into small or separate parts. According to architecture scholar Sheryl Tucker de Vazquez, fragmentation also refers to the experience of the African (Black) American. Forced to leave their homeland, enslaved Africans learned how to remix their identities, creative and self expressions, and ways of living in order to survive and thrive. These remixes reveal the algorithmic aspects of African American art forms such as the blues, jazz, R&B, African-inspired dance choreography and crafting practices such as quilt making.
Artists from Africa and Black communities globally treat AI as an aesthetic, tool, entity and technology, highlighting its faults and limitations, reimagining African cultural heritage and sharing futurist visions as well as deeply personal narratives. — Luba Elliot, Aya Data
I recently submitted the first draft of an essay (for a book) titled “The Blues Algorithm: Polyrhythmic Structures in Art & Making” and in it I explore what I call algorhythms which contain specific elements that can be repeated and improvised upon based on common or shared instructions, steps, and rules. These polyrhythmic expressions and performances expand the notion of creativity within the premises of do-it-yourself culture and software development, as well as generative artificial intelligence or AI. In the past, I worked with mathematician and computer scientist Ron Eglash on software that simulates the cultural arts, including quilts.
Culturally situated design tools or CSDTs use block-based computer code to simulate different designs. This includes the quilt-inspired sculptures by artist Sanford Biggers. Over a decade ago, we collaborated on the creation of the Afrofuturism CSDTs where you can find the tool that simulates a specific quilt block pattern from Biggers’ “Kubrick’s Rube.” This pattern is the ‘pineapple variation’ of the Log Cabin quilt that can be found in many vintage and traditional quilts. Gee’s Bend quilters often remixed this pattern with Ghanian Kente cloth designs.
Fragmentation can manifest in many ways. Collage is an another example that requires collecting found materials, folding, cutting, or tearing the material into different shapes, and assembling the shapes. The ‘cut’ is integral to Black American cultural and creative production. Scholar James A. Snead describes the ‘cut’ as a technique that insists on the repetitive nature of a song, abruptly skipping a musical sequence back to a beginning that we’ve already heard. In hip hop DJs use the cut to transition instantly between two tracks without cross-fading. Fragmentation can also be visualized using a loose style. The image below was inspired by a performance by Willie Mae (Big Mama) Thornton.
The idea that performances of polyrhythmic making such as the blues, or quilt making is like a game or ‘play’ activity suggest methods that are enlivened by improvisation: breaking the expected continuum of surfaces and sequences, and by staggering and suspending patterns. Using generative AI tools such as Midjourney I can visualize certain aspects of this production, including text from my essay and use descriptive words, modifiers or ‘boosters’ to juxtapose distinct motifs. Generative AI can be used to celebrate, enact, and interpret designs from traditional arts and crafts to achieve uniqueness and individuality in images, which is evident in the series above that was inspired by blues pioneers Memphis Minnie and Willie Mae (Big Mama) Thornton, among others.
References
Snead, James A. “Repetition as a figure of black culture,” in Black Literature and Literary Theory, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Methuen & Co, Ltd., 1984.
Tucker de Vasquez, Sheryl. “Piecing Together Place: The Quilts of the Gees Bend.” Essay. In Journal of History and Culture 1:3, 9–20. Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture and the School of Architecture at Prairie View A&M University, 2010.