Demoscene
> It can be used to produce art, but it's not art itself.
one can argue that the actual art in the Demoscene is the things the code makes visible/audible, not the code itself.
it's like saying an empty piece of paper and a pen are art instead of the drawing which was made by using those things as tools.
there is an angle of a modern art installation featuring just a pen and an empty piece of paper, but that feels like an exception confirming the rule.
For example, is .kkrieger demo? Is it art? Is the game itself art or just the textures, 3d models and locations and enemies and everything else that it produces? Though only the code generates everything, like in demoscenes, so is the code art?
Kind of subjective really.
[1]: https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for...
i'd immediately agree for code which looks like art by looking at it, so in cases where the code really is the art. i can also imagine that there's code which looks like art and "generates" it as well, so that seems like code as an artwork.
for cases where code was written/engineered well to create an artwork with the least amount of lines, i'd consider the generated artwork to be art, and the code the result of a competitive coding challenge. again, subjective.
when comparing it to other forms of art i'm not that sure. i've mentioned performance art, which feels a bit like the exception breaking the rule. there's conceptual art as well. is the act of painting art itself? is a photographer finding the optimal place to stand to take a picture art? almost starts to sound like an artwork vs. artform discussion.