The human experience known as travel might take place under any number of circumstances. Sometimes it’s an activity intentionally pursued—think vacations, destination weddings or business trips—and sometimes it just happens, incidentally, when we pull into a motel on the way from point A to point B.

A good hotel will be designed to accommodate the mindset of the guests for whom it is intended, and hotel art has traditionally been used to help it accomplish that task. When Bob and Martha arrive in matching florals and head straight for their deluxe Mai-Tai Suite, they may not know that this particular roadside inn sits on an estuary, or that the local hot spot is a Domino’s Pizza; in fact, they probably don’t care. So their lodging confers the gift of the generic: algorithmicall...