A Journey from Abstract Film to Concrete Interaction

The paper reviews abstract films and the notions of time that occur in them, contrasting them with the use of time in digital art. Developments by the author in making various generative digital abstract, or concrete, works are described and compared to film. The generation of the time element of the works described is integral with the generation of images. It is shown how different approaches to dealing with time in the digital context have emerged. In particular, an integrated constructivist approach has built from concepts in abstract film to go beyond cinema in a way that makes significant use of digital media. It has been possible to develop these works into interactive pieces by using artificial intelligent methods in various ways. True to the spirit of the early work described, these interactive works are also concrete rather than virtual. The art uses artificial intelligence to make real realities.