Code Gets Creative: DIY Festival STEM Exhibitor
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The 16th Annual Craft Lake City DIY Festival Presented By Harmons will feature over 500 local creatives this year, from artisans, vintage vendors and craft foodies to youth entrepreneurs, STEM exhibitors and performers. Get a taste of what’s coming to the Utah State Fairpark this August in the following pages and get tickets to experience it yourself at craftlakecity.com. With a dog park, VIP lounge, a national headlining musician and brand-new DIY Fest After Dark programming, this year’s festival is not to be missed!
Andrew Jensen is a software engineer working in generative art, a process where he writes code that, in turn, creates visual art. This art form transforms software into a medium for creative expression and exploration.
“Generative art combines that organization with a certain amount of randomness and chaos, just like we see in nature,” says Jensen, who discovered this medium 15 years ago. “I love the chance to explore the concept of ‘emergence,’ where simple systems can lead to beautifully complex outcomes.” His work often starts out as a sketch in his notebook. From there, he writes code to create the visual programmatically.
Jensen strives to develop systems that produce a variety of artworks. When the results lack diversity, he finds it disappointing and uninteresting. However, it’s thrilling when the algorithm exhibits a wide range of behaviors. It’s important to Jensen that his art form is distinguished from AI-generated art. “I see AI art crowding out some forms of traditional art and the artists that create it, and I’m unhappy about that,” he explains. “At the same time, I’ve also seen some animations and interactive art installations incorporate generative AI as a small building block alongside other techniques, and some of those are truly beautiful in a way that I don’t think has been done before.”
DIY Fest attendees can observe and participate in Jensen’s generative art process, purchase pre-drawn pieces and create custom designs. For more information, visit Jensen’s Instagram @andrewjensen90.
Read more DIY fest features here:
Blue Ruby: DIY Festival Vintage Vendor
Warpaint: DIY Festival Headliner