Casey Reas’ Eyeo talk response

This video was interesting for me to watch because it talked more about the artistic side of code. I’ve never really been a fan of machine made art and “randomness” because I believe that art is more than just about the art, it’s also about the artist, the humanity, creativity, emotion, and ideas behind the piece. If some machine makes random lines or dots that form an image, it might look interesting, but there is nothing to connect to, no intention to interpret. However randomness can be useful when an entire piece is not just about the randomness itself, but the randomness is used to achieve something by the artist, such as the dots (27:12) moving randomly in a specific area determined by the artist. Reas’ ideas about order vs. chaos were interesting to listen to. I found it very thought provoking when he showed how the random images generated did not seem to create any specific image but when duplicated and mirrored, those same random shapes started to “trigger our imagination” and sort of create a familiar image, due to the symmetry. I also really liked the pieces he created dependent on the lines connected between the mid points of the overlapping circles (29:05-29:45). By the end of the video I was very impressed by the things that could be done, in terms of art, using code.

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