September 21st, 2023
Reza Milani and Jonathan Carmel
A conversation with Reza Milani about their connection to nature, political activism, creative process and more!
Screen Recording 2023-09-21 at 2.43.42 PM.mov
Reza Milani is a Paris based contemporary artist exploring generative art amongst many other mediums. As this week’s community-curated feature, highlighting their “Le Printemps en Normandie” collection on Prohibition, we had the pleasure of diving deeper into the person behind the screen.
JC: I would love to know how you originally found art as a form of expression.
RM: First, I would like to thank you for creating this opportunity. Regarding your question, I must say that answering this complex question is a bit challenging, but I will try to summarize it. My inclination towards art and its narrative goes back to when I was 18 years old and was actively involved as a political activist during my college years, advocating for freedom in Iran against oppressive conditions.
One day, due to these activities, I was arrested by the Iranian government and thrown into prison simply for writing a political manifesto against oppression and advocating for freedom of speech in Iran. When I ended up in prison, I was preoccupied with how one could endure such oppressive conditions and how one could express their thoughts in a way that would have a greater impact on people and allow them to escape the clutches of these prohibitions.
The experience of writing political manifestos showed me that these words only have the power to engage the audience's minds for a few minutes, and their effect is easily forgotten, much like reading a few lines of news in a newspaper. However, art has the ability to touch people's souls and works such as novels or paintings can transform the lives of many individuals.
With the artistic background I had and my experience in photography since the age of twelve, I chose photography, specifically documentary and social photography, as my path into the world of art.
JC: When did generative art come into the mix?
RM: In 2011, I was invited to teach art at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. There I had students studying various engineering disciplines, and it was through my interactions with engineering students, especially software engineering students, that I became interested in coding and programming. In 2013, I came up with the idea of creating an AI-powered voice-based platform that could meet all the needs of its users. I started working on a series of solo startup projects that eventually led to a project called Ravi.
However, my involvement with programming and my initiation into the programming world made me wonder why I shouldn't try to create my own artwork using code. Over the course of five or six years, I prepared several works of art that were generated solely using code. At that time I had no knowledge of reproductive art and only limited information about it.
In 2020, I got acquainted with generative art and gained more knowledge about generative art through learning. My interest in generative art grew day by day and since then I seriously started creating works of art using generative art techniques.
JC: What does generative art allow you to do that traditional art doesn't?
RM: In simpler terms, generative art can be seen as a significant step in human artistic expression that is much closer to nature. When we look at mountains, for example, we are essentially looking at a generative art piece. It is an algorithm that creates infinite images. Similarly, when we look at trees or even contemplate ourselves as humans, each of us is the product of a unique algorithm generating infinite possibilities.