Generative Art as the Heir of Conceptual Art: A Genealogy of Systems

Dario Buratti, a generative artist, traces a lineage from Umberto Eco's "Opera aperta" (1962) through Jack Burnham's systems esthetics, Sol LeWitt's conceptual art, Fluxus instruction works, process art, happenings, relational aesthetics, institutional critique, and telematic art to argue that contemporary generative art is the latest iteration of conceptual art. Buratti positions the artwork as a "system" or "field" that organizes perception, experience, and meaning through interdependent components: technology, space, time, institution, and audience. He emphasizes that the artist's role shifts to that of an editor and designer of constraints, protocols, and prompts, with AI serving as a laboratory for possibility. The article references key texts and figures: Eco's "Opera aperta" (1962), Burnham's "Systems Esthetics" in Artforum (1968), LeWitt's "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" (1967), Lucy Lippard's "Six Years" (1973), Yoko Ono's "Grapefruit" (1964), Allan Kaprow's "18 Happenings in 6 Parts" (1959), Nicolas Bourriaud's relational aesthetics, and Roy Ascott's telematic art. Buratti concludes that the artwork is not a single output but the grammar that makes it possible, and collaboration with AI is a way of constructing an operational field where form, time, and continuous re-elaboration are fundamental.