Lucca Vitters: I simply wanted to write a program that generates visuals in a relatively varied way

Lucca Vitters: Ratskeller

Interview: Lara Lehmann. Published on 16. SEP 2024.

Hello Lucca, nice of you to take the time today. We’ve already spoken to each other in the course of the joint project with Simon Lang. But now I have a few more questions about your work and your artwork “Untiled”.

— What is your favorite object in your studio? What do you need to be able to work well?

I usually work in the studio at my university. There are usually a few people tinkering with some nonsense there. And that’s exactly what I need. To see ehat other people are doing, to get an idea or some good advice. There’s also a lot of electronic waste there that has been accumulated by gernerations of students, from which I’ve already drawn one or two ideas or materials.

— What core idea inspired you to create your current work and what message do you want to convey with it?

‘Emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own.’ You will hear something like this in all creative coding courses at some point when it comes to programming swarm behavior. I simply wanted to write a program that generates visuals in a relatively varied way. Reöatively because you don’t create the visuals themselves, but a (more or less large) space of possibilities in which the program then moves. It is no longer the entities (the tiles) themselves that are interesting to look at, but their interaction.

— How do you see the role of art in today’s society? In your opinion, can art bring social change?

It certainly can, but I (and nobody else) would presume to know how. Perhaps any conscious attempt to do so is already doomed to failure.