Situating generative art within the Systems Art lineage

There's a strong case for reading artists like Tyler Hobbs and Vera Molnár within the same tradition as Sol LeWitt and early systems art. The instruction-based logic, the separation of concept from execution — the parallels are structural, not superficial. What's genuinely new is the verifiability of the system itself: the code is the certificate of authenticity.

I'd argue this changes the relationship between artist and collector in a way that hasn't been fully theorized yet.

What I find particularly compelling is how the hash-based determinism of Art Blocks pieces mirrors LeWitt's wall drawings — the instructions exist independently of any particular execution. But where LeWitt relied on human draftspeople to interpret his instructions, the blockchain provides a system where the execution is verifiable and immutable. This is a genuinely new property.

There's also an interesting question about what happens to the "aura" of the artwork when the collector can verify the entire generative process. In traditional art, provenance is always somewhat uncertain — certificates can be forged, attribution can be disputed. With on-chain generative art, the provenance is the medium itself.

I'd be curious to hear from artists working in this tradition: do you think about your code-based practice in relation to Systems Art, or does that historical framing feel imposed from the outside?