Halfart

Halfart is a term used in some contemporary art contexts to describe works that foreground incompleteness, partial construction, or the hybrid production of art by human and machine processes. The word combines half and art, signaling a half-formed, unfinished, or semi-constructed aesthetic. There is no universally accepted definition, and the term's meaning varies across communities.

Common interpretations describe halfart as: imagery that presents only partial information or remains intentionally unresolved, inviting viewer inference; works produced through a collaboration between handcraft and algorithmic methods, where one half of a piece is created by a person and the other by a machine; and an aesthetic characterized by restrained composition, intentional glitches, fragmented forms, or negative space that elicits ambiguity rather than closure.

Practices associated with halfart include layering hand-drawn or painted elements with computer-generated textures, cropping or masking to leave substantial portions as suggestion, and using generative processes to determine the completed portions while preserving a visible human gesture on the rest. Some artists also explore time-based or participatory forms, where completion evolves through viewer interaction.

Halfart remains a niche concept in online forums, experimental galleries, and discourses about authorship and process. Proponents argue that it foregrounds process, temporality, and the negotiation between human intention and machine agency; critics say it risks vagueness or ceding definition to marketing terms.

See also: glitch art, mixed media, generative art, halftone, procedural generation.