Bridget Riley’s Current from 1964 is physically static: synthetic polymer paint on a flat board. Yet the repeated black-and-white curves appear to vibrate, bulge and shift when viewed. MoMA notes that Riley hand-painted the lines and was deliberately interested in creating perceptual disturbance between the surface and spectator.
I find that remarkable because no mechanism is hidden behind the work.
There is no motor.
No video.
No code.
No animation.
The movement happens in the viewer.
That makes Current a kind of generative artwork in an unexpectedly literal sense. The painting provides fixed rules. Your visual system generates the unstable result.
Move closer and the pattern changes.
Move away and another structure becomes dominant.
Look too long and the eye begins producing sensations that the paint itself does not contain.
Digital artists often use enormous amounts of computation to create movement. Riley demonstrates another route.
You can create the conditions for movement without moving anything.
Sometimes the most powerful processor in an artwork is the nervous system of the person standing in front of it.
