Sonia Landy Sheridan Founds Generative Systems at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Sheridan founded the Generative Systems program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago that would continue for a decade. Often combining a variety of equipment in unusual ways, she was interested in exploring the creative possibilities of the latest technology. Like today’s generative art, Sheridan’s work was process and conceptual-focused. Sheridan wrote: "Generative Systems is not primarily equipment and machines, but an idea, an approach and a process that provides new dimensions to our continuing attempts to probe and express the emotional and intellectual lives of human beings.” The Generative Systems program had access to the newest industrial communication tools like Telecopiers, thermo-faxes, computers and more. Experimenters at heart, Sheridan and her students probed the possibilities of these technological systems in unusual ways to test their artistic limits. Sheridan and the hugely influential program demonstrated the creative possibilities of digital tools combined with generative processes.