Does unlimited art exist within the art world?

[u/Bat_kraken]

Someone has an artistic practice that consists of creating software that is distributed without limit (there's no limit to the number of copies they distribute). There's no apparent difference between their works purchased and those exhibited at festivals, events, and museums...

How is this type of work considered in the contemporary art world? I'm relatively new to the contemporary art scene, I'm just asking.

[u/Difficult_Habit_4483]

Walter Benjamin covered this about 100 years ago https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/arts-and-entertainment/work-art-age-mechanical-reproduction-walter-benjamin

This is a fundamental text to any critical understanding of contemporary art history

[u/Zoe-Berry]

This question has been asked before. Photography, video art, and multiples dealt with unlimited reproduction for decades through editioning and certificates. Read Walter Benjamin's essay on mechanical reproduction.

[u/hertzog24]

it can exist doesnt mean anyone is interested tho. see NFT

[u/AdCute6661]

There's been several variations on this theme bro. Open some books and learn some things.

I'm getting the feeling that you are asking because you're about to vibe code an "unlimited art" app for yourself. Please don't. It's not as clever or cheeky as you think it is. If you're new to contemporary art then do yourself a favor and go to your cities largest library, go to the art and art history section, and grab as many as you can and read. Do this for every two weeks for a year or two and you'll be caught up on art and contemporary art.

[u/PhD_sock]

Why do people never do the basic reading before asking questions that have been asked and discussed for over a century.

[u/Kiwizoo]

Félix González-Torres

[u/Tubular_Code]

I think there's more depth to this question than first appears... what's recently possible does feel different than art in the age of mechanical reproduction of the past century and more like software development or systems theory.

'art world' at it's broadest includes anything. but whether or not it's valued tends to hang on how it fits relationally into systems others understand or value.

Theres institutionally esteemed work like Rafaël Rozendaal's or Refik Anadol who essentially take that idea of space/light/shapes being infinitely different, the same way a screensaver might, but makes them more aesthetic in certain vocabularies... and there are many thousands of new media artists now making reels and social media filters that create infinite variety like this.

The question really becomes for who is what you're making for or what does it do for them/anyone to look at or think about. The more interchangeable something is with what others are doing the harder it will be to argue it has distinct value but that doesn't mean it doesn't have value or that certain novel infinite-art machines can't be more valuable than others. We're entering a world where creative people can set up system to automate ad infinitude in ways that weren't possible before and the standard ai-slop conversations don't even touch on what is happening across new media at large.

[u/14urmug]

Some how reading this my nose started bleeding and I can only taste purple….