HIGHLIGHTED #1 — Compositions in Code at the Museum of the Moving Image
On March 6, the Museum of the Moving Image’s latest exhibition in partnership with the Tezos Foundation – Compositions in Code: The Art of Processing and p5.js – was opened. Running through August 23 on their Herbert S. Schlosser Media Wall, this changing installation invites viewers to revisit the genesis of code as art while contemplating its current evolution and future possibilities.
Photo credit: Museum of the Moving Image
The start of Processing, followed by p5.js
Processing, launched in 2001 by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, fundamentally transformed the perception of coding by democratizing the art-making process of it. Essentially, it is a programming language and an integrated development environment (IDE) designed specifically to make the creation of visual art more accessible.
It was developed with the intention of inviting artists, designers, and educators into the world of coding without the steep learning curve that many traditional programming languages entail. With its sketchbook-like immediacy and user-friendly interface, Processing lowered the barriers to creative expression and looking back now, it nurtured an entire generation of digital artists.
More recently, Lauren Lee McCarthy’s p5.js has carried a torch like that into the world of web-based art. While Processing was designed as a stand-alone programming environment built on Java, p5.js adapts these concepts for the web by using JavaScript. While they differ in their technical foundations, their mission is the same: to easify art-making through code.
Compositions in Code: The Art of Processing and p5.js
Compositions in Code positions these two technological programming environments in a reflective dialogue. The exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) brings together early adopters of Processing with today’s p5.js code-based art, showing the influence of the first on the development of the other platform, in over nearly a quarter of a century.
The presentation is curated as a series of diptychs – a visual pairing underscoring that dynamic conversation between ‘then’ and ‘now’. Organized by Regina Harsanyi, Associate Curator of Media Arts at MoMI and the Trilitech Arts Team, it brings together three Processing primaries - Marius Watz, LIA, and Robert Hodgin - with three contemporary practitioners who regularly harness p5.js: Aleksandra Jovanić, Sarah Ridgley, and Melissa Wiederrecht. The pairing displays the juxtaposition of stylistic choices and explores how generative art has evolved.
Marius Watz’s MoMI Exploder alongside Aleksandra Jovanić’s Returns
Photo credit: Museum of the Moving Image
Marius Watz & Aleksandra Jovanić (March 6 – May 4, 2025)
The first pairing features Marius Watz’s MoMI Exploder alongside Aleksandra Jovanić’s Returns. Watz’s work, with its roots in early experiments of 3D wireframe geometry - first teased in a monochrome beta in 2009 and later fully realized in vibrant color in 2010 - presents an abstraction that wants to challenge the viewer to perceive space beyond the edges of the canvas. In order to make it, the digital, Processing piece was projected and then physically made using artist tape, with the artist trying to approximate the hard edges of vector space with tape and scalpel.
Next to that, in counterpoint, Jovanić’s Returns is an animation that captures a singular cycle of a live, generative output. It depicts the artist's ongoing exploration of human psychology, algorithms, data visualizations, and the tendency to create connections and discern meaningful patterns in otherwise unrelated or seemingly random elements. Her work employs a random ‘walk’ algorithm that represents the ceaseless ebb and flow of life’s rhythms – bands that traverse, bounce, and eventually decay, to then be reborn in an endless loop.
LIA & Sarah Ridgley (May 8 – June 29, 2025)
The forthcoming diptych featuring LIA and Sarah Ridgley will further expand on the conversation of the counterbalance between Processing and the more dynamic explorations with p5.js. This pairing is anticipated to examine the interplay between deliberate control and spontaneous emergence, which are the inherent tensions that underlie algorithmic creation.
Robert Hodgin & Melissa Wiederrecht (July 3 – August 24, 2025)
The final diptych, which pairs Robert Hodgin with Melissa Wiederrecht, is set to round off the exhibition with an exploration of both digital aesthetics and conceptual ideas. Hodgin’s contributions have long been noted for their meditative quality, while Wiederrecht’s p5.js practice is praised for its vibrant energy and inventiveness. This collaboration is expected to highlight an intergenerational exchange of ideas.
The Tezos blockchain
The exhibition indicates the active role of the Tezos blockchain in nurturing generative art. All the artworks shown in Compositions in Code are hosted on the Tezos blockchain, which hosts many acclaimed artists working with Processing and p5.js.
For the exhibition, the involvement of the Tezos Foundation extended to refining the programming and format of the series and implementing a live minting station. That way, fragments of the exhibited works are available for visitors to mint for free onsite, while also being available online via MoMI website. Platforms frequently used on Tezos, such as fxhash, Objkt.com and EditArt, also enable and support the proliferation of code-based art for thousands of creators worldwide.
Photo credit: Museum of the Moving Image
On the opening evening, March 6, MoMI, the Tezos Foundation, and the Processing Foundation co-hosted a vernissage for the exhibition, featuring a discussion with the artist Marius Watz; with Head of Arts at Trilitech (Tezos Ecosystem), Aleksandra Artamonovskaja; and with a mentor from the Processing Foundation, Roopa Vasudevan – moderated by Regina Harsanyi, and highlighting how the blockchain technology is leveraged in digital art production and collection.
Photo credit: Museum of the Moving Image
Compositions in Code: The Art of Processing and p5.js shows us how accessible programming environments gave new possibilities for artistic production, which advanced to intergenerational exchanges of ideas. Processing and p5.js have enriched the creative practice and have redefined art education; inspiring teachers, researchers, and students worldwide to explore the potentials of code as art. And now, with the Tezos blockchain, this digitally native art practice has found its anchor.