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

TL;DR
Recursivism is proposed as a new artistic paradigm that emphasizes self-modifying, reflexive generative processes, especially enabled by AI, transforming art analysis, creation, and interpretation.
Contribution
The paper formalizes Recursivism as an aesthetic paradigm with a five-level scale and operational criteria, distinguishing it from related art forms and analyzing AI-driven self-modifying art.
Findings
Introduces a five-level analytical scale for recursive art practices.
Defines operational criteria for Recursivism: state memory, rule evolvability, reflexive visibility.
Analyzes case studies of AI art and discusses ethical implications.
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…
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Taxonomy
TopicsArt, Technology, and Culture · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Music Technology and Sound Studies
