Barcelona, a sun-drenched city on the Mediterranean coast, not only boasts Gothic architecture and bustling markets but also serves as the creative playground for digital artist and creative coder, Anna Carreras. Equipped with an engineering degree and a profound interest in audiovisual technologies, Carreras has carved a niche for herself in the realm of generative art and interactive installations, merging the realms of science and art in an almost alchemic manner. Her work, a testament to the beauty of programmed chaos and complexity, has graced venues such as the Cosmocaixa Barcelona Science Museum and the MIRA Visual Arts Festival, to accolades that include a Cannes Golden Lion and a Google DevArt award. Beyond her stupendous artistic contributions, Carreras embarks on a mission to enlighten and inspire as a mentor, impacting creative minds across Barcelona’s design schools.
In an engaging dialogue, Carreras recounts her serendipitous journey from engineering to the avant-garde frontiers of generative art. The seeds for this journey were sown early, marked by an initial foray into interactive installations and a captivation with the emergent behaviors from simple rulesets. Carreras’ artistic inquiry often revolves around the interplay of control and randomness, drawing inspiration from the mesmerizing patterns of bird murmurations. Recent endeavours see her marrying digital artistry with tangible elements, a reflection of her continuous exploration into blending realms. As an educator, Carreras’ pedagogical approach enriches her creative processes, fostering a reciprocal relationship that nurtures her vision and aspirations for her future projects.
During a conversation with Brady Walker for MakersPlace Spotlights, Carreras gives insight into her early motivations, sparked by a compromise between her and her mother’s visions for her future — a compromise that led her down the path of technology engineering with an artistic twist. Each project, from her first interactive environment for children to her most contemporary works, reflects a deeper dive into the intrigue of generative visuals and the beauty of algorithmic unpredictability. Her conviction in the potential of simple rules to generate awe-inspiring complexity resonates through her artistic and academic pursuits alike.
Describing her evolution, Carreras shares tales of creations like “Trossets” and “Brava,” pieces that embody her fascination with the emergent, the complex, and the subtly beautiful outcomes of interaction and algorithmic choreography. Her doctoral pursuits further refined her focus, delving into the realms of complexity art—a field that straddles the barely perceptible line between ordered chaos and the beauty of emergent systems, as demonstrated by nature itself.
Amidst sharing her profound journey, Carreras touches on “Gotim a Gotim,” a project that symbolizes the transformation process, drawing parallels between the creation of art and the art of winemaking. This and her series “Morena” underscore her propensity to not only explore the abstract concepts of fragility and vulnerability but also bring them to life through the digital medium, hybridized with physical forms to add depth and motion, a signature of her reflective practice.
The dialogue turns nostalgic with mentions of “Bufablau,” an interactive instrument that turned vocal expressions into visual movements, a vivid reminder of the playful and exploratory ethos that defines her work. From murmurations to metaphors of proximity and emotional dialogues with digitality, Carreras navigates through her collective works and the underlying narratives that bind them. In teaching, she finds a conduit for continuously redefining and questioning her process, engaging with the fluid dynamics of creativity, and fostering a generative space for new ideas and perspectives.
Reflecting on hypothetical scenarios and the lineage of her inspiration, Carreras lights up at the thought of collaborating on kinetic sculptures with robots—further proof of her ever-evolving imagination that seeks to bridge the palpable with the ethereal. From hypothetical monastic retreats to dialogues with abstract Spanish artists, her journey is nothing short of a quest for meaning within the maze of complexity that defines our universe.
Anna Carreras stands as a beacon of creativity and innovation in the digital art world, her works not just artifacts but invitations to explore the latent beauty in the algorithms that govern natural and digital realms alike. Through her teachings, creations, and explorations, she opens doors to new understandings and appreciations for the intertwining of order and chaos, making her a pivotal figure in the ongoing narrative of art meeting technology.
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