The idea behind digitallineart
Uniqueness as a principle
What is digitallineart?
digitallineart is a generative art website that hangs new line-art images on its wall every day. A program draws each picture from one of currently 205 geometric forms, such as polygons, spirals, Lissajous curves, Voronoi diagrams and L-system trees. The number of shapes, their positions, sizes and angles, and a random colour for every shape and for the background change with every run. Each work stays on the wall for seven days. Then it is deleted, and it can never be generated again. digitallineart is a private, non-commercial project by Matthias Susok from Germany, and every original PNG can be downloaded free of charge.
It started with a simple question: what happens when geometric shapes are made by code instead of by hand? Lines came first, the most basic drawing commands there are. They soon grew into rectangles, circles, polygons and shapes layered on top of each other. Then a different question took over: could the program make pictures that can never be reproduced?
How is a work made?
A scheduled job hangs a new work about every five minutes on the days the wall is open, and one round covers every form once. Each run picks a shape count, the positions, sizes and angles of the shapes and a background colour at random, then gives every shape its own colour from 16,777,216 possible RGB values. Nothing is traced from a template, and nothing is edited afterwards. All 205 forms are listed with one sentence each.
Why is every work unique?
Every run of the program produces a picture that can never be repeated exactly. The number of shapes changes with every rendering, and so do their positions, sizes and angles and the way they sit against each other. Each shape also gets a random colour every time it is drawn, and the background colour is random too.
That impossibility became the core rule, and it did not happen by accident. It came out of a series of deliberate decisions. Even if two pictures ever shared the same structure, which practically never happens, their colours would be completely different. The random background closes the last gap, and it changes the whole impression of a work.
digitallineart is a game between structure and chance, between mathematics and the eye. It goes looking for beauty in what cannot be predicted, and it shows that a digital space can feel alive and individual. No hand makes these works one of a kind. The code does, because it was written so that nothing it makes can be made again.
Why seven days?
Each work hangs on the wall for seven days and is then deleted for good. The code has no undo. It keeps nothing that could rebuild a picture, so what it makes exists only in that moment. One digital instant made it, and no one can get it back. Until it leaves, it can be viewed, shared and downloaded.
Where do the colour names come from?
Every work is titled after its background colour. pigmentum.net (opens in a new tab) gives each of the 16,777,216 RGB colours a name and a page of its own, and every work on the wall links to its colour’s page there. The names give abstract colours an identity, so the colour becomes part of what each picture says.
Can I use the works?
Yes. Every original PNG is free to download and licensed under CC BY 4.0 (opens in a new tab): you may use, share and adapt it, even commercially, as long as you credit digitallineart.com. The source code and the design of the website are not part of this licence.
Who makes this?
digitallineart is a private, non-commercial project by Matthias Susok from Germany, with no advertising and no revenue. The colour names come from pigmentum.net, a sister project. The full contact details are in the imprint, and the contact page takes messages directly.