Machine Art: Response to Katie Sparagna's Question

Katie proposed the question, in response to my question about "consumption art", If people consider blindly following orders and using no personal touch or creation art then what is stopping the public from including machine made art?

I continue to use examples from MASS MoCA in my blogs because they are close to us and relate to much of what we are discussing in this course. We need not look further than down the street to MoCA for the answer to this question. I believe MoCA's latest exhibit was mentioned briefly in class, but Federico Diaz's piece entitled Geometric Death Frequency - 141 fits right along with the question. 


Although not done entirely with machines, Death Frequency - 141 was constructed and planned out by machines. Diaz merely took a picture of the courtyard in front of MoCA's main entrance and then transformed the photo into pure data through the use of a computer. The computer then took this data, modulated it and created a three-dimensional structure. This process of manufacturing does not use human hands at all, instead robots who interpret the data piece the "data" together in the way that the picture algorithmically shifted at the 141st frame of manipulation.


Diaz even plans to have one of the robots in MASS MoCA in the coming months to create more pieces which will then be added to the existing piece. This will allow the viewers of the art to participate to an extent in the further process of the piece, showing that people do indeed accept art that is made by machines and that they are interested in the potential theories that can create art. 


My question would be: Would we then consider computer programs that "generate art" (take fractal generators for example) tools for creating art?