People have been using computers to make art since they became available in the 1950s. The first forms of computer art were made with ASCII characters; think pictures made from text, like the “beautiful truck” that hit Facebook walls everywhere a few years ago or the ever-popular ROFLcopter. As the science improved, and computers became more ubiquitous, more complicated forms of digital art naturally followed.

The first exhibitions of computer art came during the 1960s, though it wasn’t recognized as art at the time. These days the art community is deliberately more adventurous in pushing the boundaries of modern art. As technology becomes a greater and greater part of our lives, many artists are making software a routine part of their process.

Jonathan Keller is one such artist. He often writes Javascripts to do things digitally that otherwise wouldn’t be viable undertakings, like splice all the fonts on his computer to make a composite letter ‘K’ or visualize word occurrence in the sort of classic books that are available online in text format.

When asked in a recent interview how he describes his work to those who haven’t seen it, Keller said, “I begin by saying that most of my projects lie near the intersection of design, code and craft and are dictated by some sort of logical system. But in my systems, logic does not beget sense. In fact, the end result is often an amplification of the simplistic nature of the system’s assumptions and interpretations… When that explanation leaves one befuddled, I say “I’ve taken a photo of myself every day for the past 10 years. There’s a video of it on YouTube.”

Keller is referring to his daily photo project, The Adaptation to My Generation, for which he is best known. The project is viewable on his website and is definitely worth the look. Keller has taken a photo of himself every day since October 1998, with the short exception of a few months while he was in Antarctica, and plans to continue doing so for the rest of his life. The result is a fascinating progression; thousands of images sequenced together to make an animation of one man’s aging face.

He began the project for a few reasons; he had recently bought a digital camera, and it appealed to both his interest in obsessive behavior and his interest in spiting his then-girlfriend (though this latter reason has been challenged by the girlfriend herself). Both the digital and obsessive aspects are important parts of his work. For Keller, computer scripts are an artistic tool in much the same way that paintbrushes and absinthe were for the Impressionists. I asked him to explain what, beyond the functional aspects, draws him to use code in his projects.

“Different data sets behave differently using the same set of rules and what is amazing is how the output changes and creates unexpected results. I have little interest in seeing something perfectly in my mind only to do the production and have it come out exactly as I envisioned. There is no personal growth in that process,” said Keller. “Using code allows me to have vague visions, work on systems based around those vagaries, and be surprised by the outcome.”

Check out his work here, and you will find a few delightful surprises yourself.