Casey Reas is a generative artist, educator, and co-creator of Processing, a widely used programming language for artists. His work explores the creative potential of systems and code while maintaining a deep connection to visual culture, community, and subjectivity. For over two decades, he has been a central figure in the evolution of digital art, helping shape not only how generative art is made, but how it is taught, curated, and experienced.

This interview took place at the Hotel Saint George Hall during Art Blocks Marfa Weekend, where Casey Reas reflected on the expanding generative art community, the emotional depth of code-based work, and how Marfa represents the enduring power of creative collaboration.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

OpenSea: Let's start with an introduction.

Casey Reas: I'm Casey Reas. I'm an artist who works with code and images. I'm a generative artist.

OpenSea: You've been creating generative art for two decades. What feels the most different about it now versus when you started?

Casey Reas: When I started doing this kind of work around 2001, it was a very vibrant but very small community. It's always been very international. There have always been people sharing work online and through the web, but typically there would be a few people in different regions who were really interested and engaged. Since 2021, there are now tens of thousands of people who are really active and engaged with this. Seeing so many younger people with really good ideas and amazing energy come into the world of generative art has been the most vibrant thing that's happened.

OpenSea: Did it feel like there was a huge influx of people when NFTs came about?

Casey Reas: When NFTs came into the situation, I started getting engaged around 2020. A lot of people who were the old timers, people who were doing this work 20 years ago, came back into the fold and that was really exciting. But also, so many new people joined. One thing I love about this kind of work is that some people find their way from engineering and computer science into meshing with art. Some people from art extend into coding. You have all these vibrant ideas coming together in the community, with really interesting ideas about visual systems and images and really interesting ideas about simulation. Over the last five years, it's really been about sharing work. There have been unexpected and new things coming through. It's been so exciting.

OpenSea: Coding, using algorithms, things like that have felt very structured, but it actually takes a really different kind of creative mind to work within those constraints and it unlocks all these other things. Have you had that experience yourself?

Casey Reas: I think coding and the arts have always gone hand in hand. Before artists started using computers, they were thinking in systems and an algorithmic way. That's gone back hundreds of years, but more specifically, it has been 60 years now since artists have started to write code and make these systems. In education, typically you learn how to program computers with math and with language. What we did around 2001 was create a new programming environment called Processing. The idea there was to bring these powerful ways of thinking from coding into the visual arts. Instead of working numerically, you're actually making images from the very first day you're working with code. We found that to be so natural for artists who were already thinking in that way to be able to have access to this medium.

OpenSea: You've been teaching for so long about emerging technologies that are coming out and changing so rapidly. How do you stay at the cutting edge of that work?

Casey Reas: Because technology changes so rapidly, I focus on teaching fundamentals, ideas that have been around for decades. Once you learn those fundamentals, then you can learn whatever the new technology is with depth and with speed. That's usually the focus of education for me.

OpenSea: Even if you're teaching fundamentals, do you find that teaching helps keep you more at the bleeding edge of different technology?

Casey Reas: I don't think teaching helps me stay on the forefront of technology, but of ideas. Working with so many young people, both at the graduate level in our MFA program at UCLA and the undergraduates that I work with, they bring in new ideas about what code can be and what generative art can be. Oftentimes when you're working in this field for a very long time and you know the history of it, you sometimes make assumptions about the boundaries of it. Then people who are fresh to it come along and they move in different directions and they push and stretch. I think it's more the ideas than the technology that we really need in the world.

OpenSea: Your work with Feral File is legendary. It's always centered around collaboration and community. How do you see it shaping the next generation of artists that are coming up?

Casey Reas: One thing that's always been a core idea of Feral File is to work with curators. The idea is that we invite curators to curate shows and then the curators select the artists. If you find curators who have a really strong vision and curators who know what they want to say, they can find artists and then mentor those artists into having a really coherent experience with each other and to build a community around that exhibition. I found that to be a unique approach to working with generative art and one that I've seen really have a strong impact on people's work.

OpenSea: Your work feels both systemic and very human. We've talked about the juxtaposition of art and code, but how do you think about emotion coming through in generative art and in code?

Casey Reas: I think the best art is the most subjective art. Different people can come to a work and have different kinds of experiences. A lot of people assume that more representational work, like representing the human figure or landscape, can be a vehicle for that kind of emotion and that kind of interpretation. But I personally feel that abstract works, works made with code, which are often abstract works, can have that same effect. It's a specific sort of mindset. It's being open to that kind of work. I find the work that comes out of code and generative art can be very emotional. It's more the subjective experience that people have in front of it.

OpenSea: The feelings that work can elicit are not necessarily dependent on the way that the art is made.

Casey Reas: I don't think so at all. All different kinds of art have different ways of having an effect on you, sound-based works and image-based works. Mark Rothko is a good example. If you sit down in front of one of those paintings and really spend time with it and really sink into it and let it wash over you, you can have a very powerful emotional experience, and many people do with that kind of work.

Code is a form of writing. If we think of writing in English, we can write legal briefs, we can write poems, we can write novels. It's a very flexible way of expressing and communicating. Code is similar to that. You can make things that are very cold with code. You can also make things that are overwhelmingly sensual with it as well. It really depends on what the artist is bringing to it and what they're communicating with it. The medium itself is capable of so many ranges of expression.

OpenSea: You've said that the energy around digital art is still strong, even after all the market fluctuations we've seen over the last few years. What do you think about permanence and longevity in this space? 

Casey Reas: I always approach it from the artist's point of view, and I've been through a few booms and busts so far. If we think back historically, there was a huge surge of interest in this kind of work, cybernetic art, art and technology in the 1960s. Then it plateaued and went away. There was another surge with the birth of the worldwide web in the late nineties and early 2000s. Then there was a quiet time after that. I think we've just experienced another one of those surges. They happen. When they happen, they change things forever. From an artist's point of view, you stick with it. It's what you care about the most. It's where your passion lies. Whether people are collecting or there's attention from institutions, the artists keep going and the art keeps moving. There will probably be a time sometime in the near future where energy comes back to it and we will be here and we'll be ready for it then.

OpenSea: My last question for you is sort of broad, but what does being here in Marfa mean to you?

Casey Reas: Being here in Marfa means a lot. I've been working in this medium for a few decades and what happened in 2021 was life changing for so many different artists. It was a time of growth and a really social time. It's really so much about the work, it's about the art, but it's also so much about the people in the community. For me, being here in Marfa represents the community coming together. You gain that energy and that infectious feeling of doing this together. It's so strong here. It's a really special time and place.

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