Joshua Bagley is a generative artist who creates work entirely with code, drawing inspiration from science and the natural world.,He is fascinated by the way computer code can mimic biological processes, and much of his output relies on real-world physics and heavy experimentation to produce organic, lifelike forms.,
Bagley studied aerospace engineering at the University of New Hampshire and was born and raised in the state before settling in western Massachusetts.,,He taught himself Python in the spring of 2020 for his engineering job, and around the same time grew interested in computer simulations such as cellular automata, physarum and differential growth.,After losing his engineering job during the pandemic, he found more satisfaction making and sharing art than in his previous career, and in 2021 left engineering to pursue generative art full time.,
His first Art Blocks project, Dreams (2021), paired bright colors and irregular shapes into static compositions that he wanted to feel alive despite their simplicity.Patterns he noticed while developing Dreams reminded him of crooked, wobbly cityscapes, an observation that led him to expand its algorithm into Ecumenopolis, depicting otherworldly, planet-wide cities. For Spotlight (2022), he set out to recreate how light refracts through glass in code, pushing that physics-based system into abstraction.
In Spaghetti Bones (2023), his fourth Art Blocks release, he adapted the differential growth algorithm, in which nodes governed by forces of repulsion and attraction curve into layered, undulating lines. The project's name, chosen by his girlfriend Nicole for what an early output resembled, stuck for the final release.He also produces physical pen plots of his work on an HP 7550 Plus plotter, using code written in Processing.,
