Code as Canvas: Creative Graphics in the Age of AI

Organized by the Gwangju Media Art Platform in collaboration with Art Center Nabi, Code as Canvas: Creative Graphics in the Age of AI presents seven artists who explore code as a visual and conceptual medium. Moving beyond its role as a technical tool, the exhibition investigates how code becomes a language for graphic experimentation, spatial design, and emotional expression in the age of artificial intelligence.

The exhibition unfolds in two parts. Form as Code examines code as a compositional system that shapes rhythm, structure, and typographic syntax. Artists Peter Cho, Bob Faust, Zach Lieberman, and Omid Nemalhabib engage with gesture-based interaction, generative typography, and algorithmic processes to reveal code’s ability to structure visual logic and sensorial experience.

The Poetic Machine, the second section, considers how code mediates memory, emotion, and identity. Artists Susan Detroy, Renata Janiszewska, and Karen LaFleur employ AI, generative algorithms, and digital drawing to engage with themes such as femininity, ecological sensitivity, and cosmic imagination. Their works appear not only in the gallery but also across immersive platforms, including G.MAP’s Black Cube and outdoor media façade.

The exhibition also features special programming from MIT Media Lab’s Future Sketches group, including video archives of live coding performances and creative coding workshops. These documents reveal how typographic systems can become responsive, real-time tools for artistic performance and interaction.

Additionally, a screening of Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production (directed by Briar Levit) offers a historical counterpoint, tracing the analog-to-digital transition of graphic design and contextualizing contemporary code-based practices within broader design traditions.

Through these installations, Code as Canvas proposes that code is not merely a language of execution, but a language of imagination—one that shapes how we see, think, and feel in digital space.

Participants: Peter Cho, Susan Detroy, Bob Faust, Renata Janiszewska, Karen LaFleur, Zach Lieberman, Omid Nemalhabib, Future Sketches(Lingdong Huang, Rebecca Lin, Jessica Stringham, Vera van de Seyp, Char Stiles)

Curated by Honggyun Mok (G.MAP Curator), Yeohyun Ahn (Guest Curator) / Coordinated by Yejin Hwang (G.MAP Exhibition Coordinator) / Directed by Heokyung Kim (G.MAP Director) / In collaboration with Art Center Nabi