Recursivism: An Artistic Paradigm for Self-Transforming Art in the Age of AI

TL;DR

Recursivism addresses how AI-enabled practices transform art by formalizing self-modifying processes within a five-level scale and three operational criteria ($\mu$, $\rho$, $R$). It analyzes art history as alternating internal recursion within movements and meta-recursion across movements, situating AI as a catalyst for this transition. Through case studies (Refik Anadol, Sougwen Chung, Karl Sims, the Darwin--Gödel Machine), the paper demonstrates how outputs can become vehicles for rewriting the generative rules and even the evaluation principles themselves. The framework informs aesthetic judgment, curatorial strategy, and ethical considerations, offering a rigorous language for designing and interrogating self-transforming artistic systems at the intersection of art, computation, and society.

Abstract

This article introduces Recursivism as a conceptual framework for analyzing contemporary artistic practices in the age of artificial intelligence. While recursion is precisely defined in mathematics and computer science, it has not previously been formalized as an aesthetic paradigm. Recursivism designates practices in which not only outputs vary over time, but in which the generative process itself becomes capable of reflexive modification through its own effects. The paper develops a five-level analytical scale distinguishing simple iteration, cumulative iteration, parametric recursion, reflexive recursion, and meta-recursion. This scale clarifies the threshold at which a system shifts from variation within a fixed rule to genuine self-modification of the rule itself. From this perspective, art history is reinterpreted as a recursive dynamic alternating between internal recursion within movements and meta-recursive transformations of their generative principles. Artificial intelligence renders this logic technically explicit through learning loops, parameter updates, and code-level self-modification. To distinguish Recursivism from related notions such as generative art, cybernetics, process art, and evolutionary art, the article proposes three operational criteria: state memory, rule evolvability, and reflexive visibility. These concepts are examined through case studies including Refik Anadol, Sougwen Chung, Karl Sims, and the Darwin-Godel Machine. The article concludes by examining the aesthetic, curatorial, and ethical implications of self-modifying artistic systems.