Maybe not, but the process of creation and the final result will be of interest to other creators. Like any hobby it might seem strange to outsiders but it will be fascinating to those who are part of the scene.

There are certainly pieces of code that should be put on display, for example productions from the demoscene[1] and competitions like the underhanded C contest [2].

The code in these cases is usually wizardry understood by a select few, but the stories, optimizations, trickery and even formatting can be told to anyone who loves design.

[1] https://demozoo.org/ [2] https://www.ioccc.org/

No, because it doesn't make sense to experience it in that context. I think of it as more like poetry . For example: https://www.norvig.com/spell-correct.html

They'll pay for it for their private collections, though.

https://www.artsy.net/feature/the-algorithm-auction

It sounds like you have a very narrow understanding of what Art can be.

Friend, get yourself down here: https://computerhistory.org/

I read code for fun in my free time

> Nobody will go to an exhibition or a museum to stare at code like we do with paintings.

Because most code is a stinking pile of shit.

But at least I can easily imagine a world where people indeed do this. :-)

Indeed yesterday I drew some pictures (on my computer) that visualize what actually happens in some rather mathematical algorithms.

one doesn't go to a gallery to watch the painting get made. Creative coding can still be enjoyed by appreciating the output.

The immediate rebuttal to that might be that "AI could just do it" but that's not entirely true - the sort of art that you (typically) see in a gallery isn't "an accurate representation of the world as viewed" just as a lot of "code as art" isn't "a problem solved with code". The camera captures (mostly accurate) images, and AI is usually writing "code that does a thing".

The expressiveness (can) come from a place that's deeply human, and can yield a product that is tangibly diifferent from what an efficient coding process would normally produce.

A few of us played a game when I was in batch at the Recurse Center - we called it Monstrosity. The game was to build a string in the absolutely least efficient way possible - using the largest stack, the most network hops, the most obfuscatory and difficult methods to create a character (bit-shifting algorithms to make ASCII, anyone?). It was beautiful, and it was the kind of thing that AI would never think to do (at least, not without significant cajoling and even then you'd be missing the point).