Daniel Brown is an artist and web-designer whose work explores the creative and aesthetic aspects of interactive art. Perhaps best known for his flower series, his seminal website noodlebox.com was released in 1997 when he was only 20 and working for Amaze. This was followed by the collection Bits and Pieces in 2000. He currently works on independent commissions for SHOWstudio, while his own works and collaborations can be seen at play-create.com. In 2004 he won the Design Museum's Designer of the Year award. This year he has curated the onedotzero exhibition Generative X at the ICA, showcasing his own and parallel explorations into the field of generative artwork.

Daniel Brown is exhibiting work in the goup show Generative X at the ICA (till 30/06).

Additional Info
On Growth And Form animation
On Growth And Form screengrabs
Play-Create screengrabs
Various additional screengrabs

This interview was conducted via email.

Alex Haw: Your work is exquisite and often refers to nature. In the natural world, the beautiful often fades. How do you see your works ageing, and how do you look back on earlier works? Does beauty mature or fade?

Daniel Brown: I'll put this one on its head by saying that looking back on my work over the last ten years, the pieces I'm least happy with are those that seem to pander to "of the moment" technology. I almost cringe at that. I think timelessness, as in nature, flowers and the like, comes from quite an impulsive sense of beauty. This doesn't necessarily require any technical revolution.

AH: Some of the more linear pieces can self-destruct, obliterating their own screen with imagery, whilst the interactive ones can go on forever; does this make the interactive pieces more timeless, or better?

DB: Certainly not better necessarily. I don't thing that I would say pieces "self-destruct", I suspect you're thinking about something that might have been intentional. It's nice to make pieces "climax" and then start afresh. It's also nice to occasionally let the "factors" controlling a piece go just that little bit further than expected.

AH: The ICA show [Generative X] you curated is full of wonderful pieces that really engage the viewer. How tempted were you to go the full hog and cram the place with toys to play with? What made you decide against a fully-interactive show?

DB: I specifically envisaged the show to be a curiosity shop. I wanted people to peer in and think "what on earth is that?". I didn't feel the need to use all interactive work because the show is explicitly aimed at video designers, being a part of the onedotzero festival. To this audience non-interactive work may be more relevant right now. And besides, interactive work unless designed well can look pretty boring when not being used, and I didn't want a room full of static pieces when the gallery was closed. I wanted people to see it and want to come back during opening hours.

AH: Some of the interactive pieces were modulated by cameras, some by mouse, some by keyboard; what kind of interfaces do you want to explore in the future?

DB: Due to the limits of my physical dexterity (I'm wheelchair bound) interfaces such as video input have become less important to me now. My number one interest at this minute has to be mobile phones, I'm really excited at the idea of people downloading this kind of work onto their handset.

AH: Is your pursuit of generative art purely linked to computers, or do you see it also related to other traditions of artists removing themselves from the centre of control, and embracing chance operations?

DB: Its purely linked to computers, this is my main passion.

AH: I was very impressed by Casey Reas [featured in Generative X], whom I just saw presenting his and Ben Fry's Processing software at Sonar [Barcelona], where I also saw work by other people in your show (in particular Golan Levin's stunning Messa di Voce installation). Do you develop your own software, or do you work with others that develop it with you?

DB: I was born to an artist/designer father and a mathematician/musician mother: I'm quite lucky in that I have both an artistic mind and a mathematical one. I do most of my programming myself. It's interesting to see however that the "open source" community (people offering code for free that other people can learn from) is making this field a lot more accessible to people who wouldn't necessarily consider themselves programmers. And in that respect, Ben and Casey's work is awe inspiring.

AH: Sonar hosted a large exhibition which linked to several stunning internet sites diagramming various sorts of information. How do you distinguish between your art as entertainment and other web forms which focus more on communicating information?

DB: My background is actually in the field of information presentation and navigation. However, I grew bored of this as it became apparent back then that no companies were willing to invest in large enough web sites and databases to really make use such solutions, at least on a commercial level. I think that's changing now though, companies like google are providing very powerful data-mining tools and sites like the BBC are offering people direct access to their databases for experimentation.

AH: What relative value do you assign in your own work to those pieces which are interactive and those which aren't?

DB: Good question! Don't think I've ever been asked this which is interesting in that it hides a truth -- that I feel incredibly unhappy when I fail to make a piece interactive. There are two elements at play with programmed art -- firstly making a mathematical engine that produces pretty results, and secondly interpreting user input in a way which looks obvious enough that the user knows he did it, but also manages to stop the user producing rubbish or crass results! I treat both things as separate tasks, and some times it's possible to do the first but not the latter. However, that said, most of the non-interactive work I produce now is "generative", in that the computer endlessly creates unique results, which never repeat. So if you saw the same piece twice they'd not look the same: and if I sold the piece to two people they'd still have a unique work. This is a concept that I'm working with a lot -- especially in my flower series -- and I find it very exciting.

AH: Certain programs that deal with the phenomenon of emergence also offer the possibilities for error and poor results; are you interested in works that evolve but don't quite survive, aren't quite the fittest?

DB: I tend to have a fairly different outlook on this than my contemporaries -- I personally believe in a very traditional sense of beauty. Whereas other artists are interested in work that breaks in that sense, to me its not interesting. As I said in the ICA onedotzero panel, if something looks broken, it's not of any more value than something that is broken. And I always aim to make my work appeal to a non-technically minded audience, who in any case wouldn't appreciate such "technical post modernism".

AH: Do you ever want to shock, alarm or transgress?

DB: Only with irony. One of the purposes of the Play-Create web site is to look at interactive alternatives to current computer games which have only primitive goals -- and to this end I enjoy creating pieces which are a stab at that culture. I'm currently working on a set of simple games which parody '80s classics such as Space Invaders, but which are incredibly hectic and not even possible to finish.

AH: You speak of your work as providing an immersive experience, you've cited an interest in Bill Viola's films as providing a virtual window, and many of your works place an importance on the mapped environment; it almost sounds as if, like me, you're an architect. Does architecture interest you?

DB: I think you've touched upon two issues here which I'd like to treat separately. My reference to Bill Viola's work came from something people often say to me. Upon looking at my work, many people tend to suggest that my work would suit being in a physical installation, with interactive motion tracking and the like. I've never shared this view as i think the screen has a beautiful ability to be perceived as a portal -- people can happily watch TV and accept that although what they're seeing isn't real, they can nonetheless immerse themselves in it. Its like the wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe -- and although adults tend to loose this ability to be "imaginative", the screen seems able to still put them in that place.

Architecture most certainly interests me. I considered being an architect, until I realised that the likelihood of designing what I wanted to design -- skyscrapers -- was pretty unrealistic in the United Kingdom. There's something about tall buildings I find -- that humans respond to in a completely unique way. Like the beginning of the film 2001 when the black monolith arrives one day out of the blue, and by its mere presence it enlightens. This is what it is to me to stand outside such buildings. I like to recreate this feeling, this sense, in my work.

AH: Interactive art is certainly faster, and perhaps less frustrating. Are you talking above about a kind of technological sublime? Because when you talk about your own work, you seem to prefer to talk of experiences than technologies. Do you think of what you do as more, or less, interactive than architecture?

DB: I think its two different things. Everyone knows the Gherkin in London [30 St Mary Axe] for example, but I'd argue relatively few people actually get close to it, to appreciate it in all its beauty. But I like to think my work is accessible to lots of people all over the world. People who might not be in this country, might never come to this country: may never have even been in an art gallery.

AH: Do you see connections between the interactive web-site and more physical sites which people might explore and change?

DB: Not sure about this. For me, a large part of the satisfaction I get from my work is knowing that thousands of people can see it on the internet. The moment its fixed in a physical place it becomes a different thing. Though an exception is the Generative X show I curated, which I felt was ok being in a physical place as I knew it would get seen/played with by people who wouldn't necessarily see/find it on the web.

AH: Were you surprised to see the way they behaved in front of the work, and to see those invisible, remote web-users in the flesh?

DB: Ironically, being in a wheelchair limited my access to the room, and hence I've not had the chance to watch many people in there! I have had some fantastic and lovely feedback via email though: and that alone makes it worth it I think. In the days running up to the show, artists Ed Burton and Zachary Lieberman actually finished their collaborative work in the gallery -- that was amazing to see them working and playing off each other.

AH: Given the game-like quality of some pieces, what kind of audience do you imagine interacting with your work? Where does it sit on the blurry line between attraction and distraction?

DB: My work is most certainly meant as entertainment, and that's why I often see it as more akin to fashion than to art. I hope that my work will appeal to all ages. When thinking something up, I do like to think of the family with a PlayStation next to their living room television. What does mum and dad do with it when the son is not using it? I like to think they'd enjoying running one of my pieces on it. That's Play-Create.

AH: Interesting that you mention fashion and also the everyday user -- your earlier comments about aiding the user suggested the work of a great couturier whose dresses make all the girls look great. Do you think of your entertainment as life-enhancing, even beautifying? Would it be ideal if it was impossible to achieve the non-beautiful with your work?

DB: No, it must be easy for a user to create beautiful imagery with my pieces, but not automatic. A user must see that they have played a part in the creation process.

AH: Some of your works borrow cinematic tools like motion blur, or a jiggling frame as if recorded by a handheld camera. How important is cinema to what you do?

DB: As I spoke about earlier, I see the computer screen much the same as the television screen or cinema screen, and I've found that those sorts of techniques help put users in, literally, that "frame of mind". Plus I personally hate the modern computer graphics "aesthetic" (clean lines and flat colour) and have been trying for years to create something different.

AH: Aside from fashion (and your collaborations with Nick Knight), you've mentioned Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry as influences -- do you want to work in fields outside interactive art and web design?

DB: No, not really. As I spoke at a panel at the ICA recently, I'm not necessarily a great hand animator or graphic designer. In fact any animation or graphic design you see of mine has undoubtedly been generated by a computer program I've written rather than being hand-made and edited. I'm not keen on linear animation in some respects, as once its pressed on DVD you can't change it, and it will always be the same. I change my mind too often to live with this!

My work is carried by the vision that very soon everyone will have a very powerful internet-connected console or computer attached to their living room television. And when that happens, I think the media will change, and in fact all music and music video, all entertainment will become interactive, so I see a convergence and a collaborative media in which I'm very happy to direct the interactive component, and leave the video and audio to the experts that do that.

Alex Haw is an architect and filmmaker who writes for several magazines and runs a design unit at the Architectural Association. His video documenting the ubiquity of London surveillance (CCLTV) premiered at the Sonar Festival in Barcelona last week.

Image © Daniel Brown